


If Heaven and Hell Decide

by capgal



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Alternate Universe - Heaven, Gen, Literal Guardian Angel Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mostly cameos on the Avengers' part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-10 02:48:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 41,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7827436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capgal/pseuds/capgal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve grins at him, bright and wide despite the split lip that must be stinging terribly. Buchanan—<i>Bucky</i> grins back, and it feels like something clicks into place. Something swell in the constricted chest of his temporary human body and quivers in his spine as warmth tingles through his limbs like the aftershocks of Grace.<br/>Absolutely nothing good can come of this.</p><p>-----<br/>Or: Bucky is Steve's literal Guardian Angel--at least, until Steve gets himself killed and Bucky makes him an angel to save him. But just because you’re in Heaven doesn’t mean war is over, and the price of turning his friend into an angel might turn out to be a little more than some lost Grace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. EARTH: Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Stucky Big Bang 2016: my first big bang, and my first longfic!!
> 
> Endless thanks to everyone who saw this fic to completion, especially:  
> vulcansmirk for encouraging me to write this,  
> my betas artgroves & dangerouslychaoticnacho,  
> and my artists milollita & maichan808.  
> Be on the lookout for their lovely art, to come in the next few days!
> 
> Title from _I'll Follow You into the Dark_ by Death Cab for Cutie, which apparently I'm taking with me from one fandom to another.  
> 
>
>>   
>  _If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied,_   
>  _illuminate the "no"s on their vacancy signs,_   
>  _if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks,_   
>  _then I'll follow you into the dark._   
> 

# PART I: EARTH

Buchanan most definitely does _not_ grumble as he flies down to Earth. It will not surprise him one bit if it turns out the Council is eavesdropping on his mind, and if he’s caught with even a single stray thought, they’ll give him another one of those interminable lectures. Besides, Cherubim do not _grumble_ —it would be far below his dignity as an angel to engage in such an act as grumbling. No, what he’s doing is simply pointing out all the obvious reasons why this _sucks._

It wasn’t bad enough that the Council had to send him down to _Earth_ , where the air tastes stale and the light is dim and the humans are petty. No, he had to be sent down to Guard some tiny newborn Soul, until whatever Moment in their petty human life made them slightly more important than other humans in the trifling mess called human history. He’s a Cherub, damn it all, not some untrained and bumbling Angelic. He didn’t fight so hard to earn the moniker _Soldier_ just so he could be put on glorified babysitting duty.

The metaphysics around him shift, withering and shrinking, and Buchanan suppresses a shiver. He can already feel the smallness of it entrapping him, squeezing tight around his wings and clogging in his throat—and if it’s entirely psychogenic, stemming only from his disdain for this sphere of life, well, it doesn’t make it any less suffocating. Grace crawls under his skin like a thousand tiny demons, longing to break him free and fly him back to Heaven, and only a combination of centuries of loyalty and a healthy fear of the Council’s retribution stops him from fleeing. Instead, he hones in on the signature of the Soul that the Council showed him, and begins to track down the one he’s supposed to Guard among the crushing press of people below. Of _course_ he ends up in the middle of a damn metropolis, trying to find one particular person among thousands and thousands. A needle in a haystack would be easier.

Finally, after spending too much time flying aimlessly above the skyline—he thinks this is New York, by what little he bothers to know about the human world—something in his Grace buzzes to life, and he knows he has found it. Now that he can feel the Soul, he lets himself be drawn inwards, passing through off-white hallways and stark curtained rooms until he sees him.

He’s a tiny little thing, probably a few hours old at most. And yes, he’s human, and a baby at that, but Buchanan’s pretty sure that even human babies aren’t supposed to be this small, or this… fragile. He lets a tendril of Grace sneak from his fingers, merging into the Soul, and he has to stifle a frustrated huff. The heartbeat is erratic and barely there, the lungs make a sort of wheezing noise that he _knows_ doesn’t belong in normal breathing, and the spine is bent oddly and already creaking like an old man’s. The entire body is weak enough that he wouldn’t be surprised if he found the Soul dead within a week—but now it’s his damn job to make sure that doesn’t happen.

With an aggrieved sigh, Buchanan steps closer so that he can splay his fingers over the tiny chest, and sends a pulse of Grace through entirely too breakable ribs to bolster the flagging heart and lungs. He leaves enough Grace behind in the body to hopefully deal with any ailments that flare up for a few months, commits the signature of this Soul to memory, and gratefully flies back to Heaven. With any luck, he won’t have to come back to Earth anytime soon.

Of course it never goes the way he wants. Over the next few years, Buchanan makes more trips to Earth than he ever has in the past centuries of his life, and learns more about human illness than he ever wanted to. Pneumonia. Scarlet fever. Rheumatoid fever. Whooping cough. Asthma. Polio. The list stretches on and on and on, each time another strain of distress reaches him through the Grace that links him to the Soul. Every time, he grumbles his way down to Earth, siphons enough Grace into the body to make sure it doesn’t fall to pieces, and flies back off. His annoyance at being assigned as a Guardian doesn’t decrease, precisely, but he does get used to it. He even starts to half-heartedly care about the Soul, the way you might care about a stray dog that keeps begging at your doorstep: it’s annoying, but it’s also pitiful and endearing in an odd way. Although he’d never admit to it, sometimes he flies down to Earth just to check in, even when no distress calls him down.

Today is one of those times. He circles the Brooklyn skies, honing in on the Soul’s signature, and finds himself standing near a run-down theatre. At first, he thinks the Soul is inside—but then a stab of distress hits him, not strong enough to alert him in Heaven, but clear and amplified when he’s this close. Something like concern flares hot in his chest, and Buchanan immediately sharpens his focus on the signature and surges towards the narrow back alley where the distress came from. He doesn’t bother trying to round a corner, just passes through the walls of the theatre until he reaches the Soul, and startles to a stop.

The Soul is standing on shaky feet by the end of the dead-end alley, bleeding from his nose and a split lip. A black bruise blooms on his cheek. Between Buchanan and the Soul stand three boys, each probably twice the size of the Soul, with dirty grins on their lips. As Buchanan watches, the Soul spits out a taunt—“I can do this all day”—and gets punched into the ground for his trouble. Buchanan’s first emotion, flaring hot as the shock wears off, is a bolt of anger at this boy with frail bones and frailer lungs who dares to pick fights and make his job even harder. His second emotion, rapidly overpowering the first, is a breathless sort of awe tinged with surprise.

The Soul is _blinding_ , literally radiating enough light to give himself a halo, and it’s all he can do not to close his eyes against the brightness. For a moment, he thinks he must have transferred too much Grace into the Soul, but no—the Soul has an aura of his own, practically ablaze around him. But Souls aren’t supposed to have _auras_ , just a little light around them. Buchanan isn’t sure how or why this Soul is so bright, but it doesn’t matter; what matters is how impossibly, impossibly radiant this Soul is. He wonders how he never noticed before. Reason is slow to catch up with the realization that this is the first time he’s seeing the Soul without the dulling haze of quasi-fatal sickness.

The crack of another punch meeting flesh shakes Buchanan from his reverie, and he spares a moment to make sure no other humans are near enough to see before he materializes in a human form at the end of the alley. He barely pauses long enough to make sure he presents roughly age-appropriate before he sprints forward as fast as his suddenly weak legs can muster.

With surprise as his weapon, Buchanan lands a solid hit on the first boy’s jaw. The thin skin stretched over his knuckles tears with the force, but it just spurs him on, and he throws all his anger into his leg as he kicks at the second boy. He’s unused to this body, and the blow swerves wide and lands on the back of the boy’s leg instead of his knee. It’s still strong, though, enough to send the boy stumbling back a few steps, and that’s good enough. Buchanan turns on the third boy with a slightly feral, adrenaline-fueled grin on his lips, ready to lash out another foot or a fist, and finds the boy turning tail to run instead. He aims a parting kick at the empty air behind the boy anyway, just to make sure the other two don’t get any ideas. He’s still seething, annoyed by the strain he can feel in his too-tight lungs, when a voice speaks behind him.

“I had him on the ropes.”

Buchanan startles. This is the first time he’s heard the Soul speak. He almost scoffs at the ridiculousness of the statement, but catches himself at the last second when he recognizes the thrum of embarrassed anger through the Grace still connecting them. He swallows the caustic words still on his tongue with a gulp of air. “Sure you did,” he says instead. “Thought I’d just help it go faster.”

The Soul’s face breaks apart into surprise for a scant second before clouding over with suspicion, as if he’s unsure whether he’s being made fun of. “Who’re you anyway? Never seen you around before.”

“Think you know all the boys in New York?” Buchanan shoots back sharply, trying to mask the panic suddenly blooming in his chest. How the hell is he supposed to answer this question? It’s been a while since he last paid attention to Guarding rules, but he’s pretty sure he’s not even supposed to be _seen_ by the Soul, much less speak to him. Giving his name probably crosses the line from ‘not allowed’ to ‘unthinkably egregious.’

“I know a lot of ‘em in Brooklyn,” the Soul mumbles, a little defensive and a little sheepish. “And you still ain’t answered my question.”

He should walk away right now. He should turn around and disappear. He should use his Grace to make sure this Soul never remembers seeing him. He should do a lot of things, but what he does instead is the one thing he’s absolutely certain he’s never supposed to do. “Buchanan,” his mouth says, before his mind can catch up and stop him from this monumentally stupid endeavour. He’s already panicking and thinking about the best way to make the Soul forget, when the voice breaks into his thoughts.

“What kinda name is Buchanan?” he says, and Buchanan looks up to find the Soul’s nose wrinkled in confusion, or maybe just thought. “Is it like President James Buchanan?”

Buchanan nods quickly. “Yeah, yeah, that’s what it is. Mom said she always liked him, I dunno why. James Buchanan Barnes, that’s my full name.” The last name he steals from the words of some passer-by two streets over, but this boy need not ever know that.

“Well, James Buchanan Barnes, my name is Steven Grant Rogers. Good to meet ya.” The Soul rubs his hand against his pants in a futile attempt to wipe off the dirt and blood before sticking it out. He looks serious in the way only children can be, a little shy and a lot determined. Buchanan stares for a scant moment before grabbing it. The Soul’s hand is bigger than he expected, insinuating strength in a subdued sort of way despite how Buchanan can feel every thin, breakable bone in his grip.

“Nice to meet you too, Steven.”

A grimace creases Steven’s face for a second. “Call me Steve. Ma only ever calls me Steven when I’m in trouble.”

“Okay, Steve, I can do that.”

“So, Buchanan, you got a nickname? It’s just, Buchanan’s an awful mouthful is all. Uh…. how ‘bout Bucky? You mind if I call you Bucky?”

“Nah, I don’t mind at all. I’d like that.”

Steve grins at him, bright and wide despite the split lip that must be stinging terribly. Buchanan— _Bucky_ grins back, and it feels like something clicks into place. Something swells in the constricted chest of his temporary human body and quivers in his spine as warmth tingles through his limbs like the aftershocks of Grace.

Absolutely nothing good can come of this.


	2. EARTH: Chapter 2

It’s easy.

It’s easy, the way he quickly gets used to and even _enjoys_ thinking of himself as Bucky instead of Buchanan. It’s easy, the way the Council accepts his flimsy excuses of needing more time to Guard over a Soul as sick as Steve—and a part of him squirms uncomfortably at exploiting Steve’s frail body like that—and lets him out of just about every duty. (He isn’t called _the Soldier_ for nothing, though, and he doesn’t let even Steve’s bright blinding glow distract him from battle training. It’s much harder than it should be.) It’s easy, the way he catapults into Steve’s life, caught in his brilliance like a stray comet trapped in orbit.

It’s _too_ easy, really, but Bucky isn’t about to question it. He’s almost positive he’s not supposed to be this close to Steve. He’d be the first to admit he’s no expert on the rules of Guarding, but he’s certain there was at least one line about not revealing yourself to your Soul. In fact, he’s sure he must be breaking at least fifteen rules. There is a gossamer thread of uncertainty, though, since he only skimmed the bare minimum when he was assigned as a Guardian, and he hangs onto it like a lifeline. Maybe if he doesn’t check, if he doesn’t turn the very likely possibility into an absolute certainty, then he can also avoid the reality. He still spends the first few breathless years waiting for the Council to come cracking the rules like a whip over his head, full of caustic reprimand and ready to tear him away from Steve in favour of a new, detached Guardian.

But the expected raid never comes. Not the first month, not the first year, not even the years after that. Even a Cherub can’t be on high alert forever, and Bucky slowly relaxes. He always thought Guardians were kept under closer watch, but maybe he got lucky and slipped through the cracks somehow. Maybe whoever’s supposed to be observing him got lazy. Maybe it’s simply that no one really cares. He’s certainly not going to draw anyone’s attention to his inadvisable transgressions; no use bringing down the rage of the Council upon his own head if he hasn’t pinged anybody’s alarms yet.

Of course, there are close calls. He has more than a few confused one-sided conversations with Steve, wondering why he’s being ignored, before realizing that he’s still in angel form and therefore undetectable to Steve. Once, he even gets caught transitioning into human form by some passerby in a back alley, and has to spend a few frantic seconds blocking that part of the human’s memory. He learns, though; after a while, the routine of checking his surroundings, transitioning, and approaching Steve becomes as natural as flying.

He learns to see the warning signs of Steve’s too-frequent bouts of illness, to bolster his heart or liver or lungs or stomach or bone marrow or blood before the disease _really_ burrows in, staving off the worst of the damages. It’s still rough. No matter how much he hates to see Steve shuddering with another fever, no matter how much he hates watching Steve’s medical records lengthen without end, no matter how many of the rules he’s already breaking, Bucky’s still bound by the core of Heaven’s rules, and Guardians are not allowed to use their Grace to intervene in human life unless the Soul’s life is endangered. Which, with Steve, happens far too often than it should. Every illness he’s not allowed to help with, though, leaves Bucky more protective than ever, and it’s not infrequent that he spends entire days hovering around Steve both in human and angel form, fretting uselessly. He knows there’s nothing he can do. He knows. It doesn’t stop him.

Steve asks a couple times what the hell Bucky does that has him sticking around so much and then disappearing for weeks, and Bucky concocts some fantastic story about sneaking out of the orphanage, about running away to live on the streets. It doesn’t make much sense, really, and he’s lucky that Steve’s young enough to be impressed instead of incredulous when he first asks—and that by the time he’s old enough and world-wise enough to be suspicious, Steve’s already learned to accept Bucky’s fallible excuses as a quirk and not ask too many questions. Bucky’s not sure what sort of conclusions Steve’s drawn—some terrible hidden family history? Delusions? Childish fantasies?—but he decides it’s better to let Steve’s imagination run wild than to try to come up with a more believable story.

Steve grows up, at once crawling slow and all too fast. His bones don’t grow any less breakable, and his lungs don’t grow any stronger, but his limbs do lengthen. His voice drops, eventually. He still gets sick often, but with Bucky’s occasional meddling he survives long past what any doctor predicted. He still looks like a gust of wind could blow him over, like a good punch could snap him in half, but he grows into himself in his own way. He still fights far too often, and Bucky suspects it’s at least partially because Steve burns with outrage at a world that keeps him trapped in his frustratingly frail body, burns with the desire to prove that he can be strong despite it all. But there’s usually some good cause, too—a harassed woman, a loud-mouthed ass, a rude drunk at the bar—and Bucky can’t find it in himself to be upset for long even if he frets and whines and scolds Steve in turn. It’s what makes Steve _Steve_ , after all, what makes him keep shining even as the world tries to dull him, what keeps Bucky so helplessly entranced. Bucky can’t possibly be upset about that. He just makes sure Steve learns to punch a little better instead, so that he won’t break his fingers to pieces when he lands a lucky hit solidly against the next guy’s jaw.

Bucky comes to keep track of time on Earth in a way he never did before, making sure he never lets too many days pass before visiting Steve in human form. And if “too many days” grows shorter and shorter as Steve grows older—from a month or two, to a week at most, to almost every day—he doesn’t think too much about that, either. At first he thinks up excuses for himself—he’s just doing his _job,_  the work the Council assigned him to do; it’s much easier to Guard Steve if Bucky sees him every day; he can’t lie to Steve and walk away from him _now,_ that’ll only make Steve wonder—but they grow more tenuous with every visit, and he gives up soon enough. He knows he’s breaking the rules. It might help to have some excuses if— _when_ —the Council comes after him for his indiscretion, but there’s no point in lying to himself. It stopped being about Guarding Steve a long time ago. Instead, it’s about how much Bucky enjoys simply being around Steve, how much he longs to bask in the light of Steve’s Soul, how much he’s come to enjoy the company of Steve the person as well as Steve the Soul. It’s about how much he wants to see Steve grin all teeth and pale lips, how much it frightens him every time Steve’s sick. It’s about how much he’s come to care about this tiny, fragile human boy, and the Soul that embodies it. It’s about how he’s become not just Steve’s Guardian, but his friend. His _best_ friend, even. And maybe, just maybe, it’s even about that tiny squashed-down part of him that wants to be closer still to that light, that good, that wonder of a human being called Steve Rogers.

Steve is… beautiful. Perhaps not conventionally—whatever convention means to a country that’s barely a few centuries old—with his slim hips and thin fingers. But he’s got soft hair Bucky likes to fiddle with, and summer-sky eyes with specks of highlights glinting like Grace, and a smile that can turn from embarrassed to wicked in the blink of an eye. Steve is so blindingly beautiful, and so damned _good_. It floors Bucky how no one else seems to see it. True, part of what makes Steve so entrancing to Bucky is his Soul, the brighter-than-starshine glow that lights him up—but surely it must be visible on his face, too, even to humans that can’t see Steve’s Soul. Surely they must be able to see in the lines of his jaw, in the angles of his elbow, in the ridges of his fist. Sometimes Bucky wonders at his own fortune, wonders how he got lucky enough to Guard someone like Steve, to be so close to someone so bright and good. And it’s fine, it’s fine if that’s all he gets. It’s fine if he never gets to hold Steve the way he really wants to, if he never gets to learn what Steve’s fingers feel like twined between his, what Steve’s lips feel like under his, what Steve’s skin tastes like. He knows it’s not viable, this way Steve draws him in like a wet paper bag in a tornado. There’s a million and one reasons why anything more is impossible, starting with “Bucky’s a fucking Cherub” and ending with “Steve doesn’t want that, anyway.” Bucky’s okay with that, he thinks. He has to be.

It’s fine, until it’s not. Until it’s very suddenly and very severely not.

Steve is fifteen, and his mother is dying—and _Bucky is not allowed to intervene._ He senses it stirring in Sarah’s lungs even before the symptoms start, and at first he panics because a part of him automatically assumes it’s Steve’s lungs crawling with disease. When he finds out the truth an hour later, after frantically fussing over a surprisingly healthy Steve, he wants to cry and cry and cry, pride and propriety be damned. Some of his tears are for Steve, for the pain he will go through in losing the only parent he’s known, for the loss of the one staunch and unwavering source of support in his life. But some of his tears are also for Sarah, and—selfishly—for himself. He’s never had a mother, not like Steve. No one raised him after he was created the way Sarah raised Steve. For centuries, he’s hardly known the kind of unquestioning, unconditional warmth Sarah offered him, just for being Steve’s friend. Sarah is good, the way Steve is, and some part of him wants to scream foolishly at the cruelty of Heaven. It’s a habit he’s picked up from spending so much time around humans. As if Heaven keeps such close watch on every Soul. As if Heaven cares, beyond entertaining themselves watching human lives pass by like short stories in their little crests and falls. He’s intimately familiar with the uselessness of the thought—the world has no such neat order imposed by all-knowing Gods—but he suddenly, viscerally understands the urge. It would be better to have something to rage against; knowing there’s not a cosmic explanation why Sarah’s the one dying and not the old asshole living two doors down from the Rogers’ provides no comfort, not even the cold and bitter kind.

He becomes old friends with rage and uselessness over the next two years as tuberculosis slowly but surely erodes Sarah’s body. The disease makes more than one lunge at Steve’s lungs, too, but it’s hardly a problem for Bucky to dispel that. This time, when his fingers tingle with Grace, when he watches a pale blue tendril seep into Steve’s lungs, he does not need to come up with any excuses; even without Steve’s already weak immune system, this would be more than enough of a threat to his life. Protecting Steve brings Bucky a momentary flash of a sharp sort of glee, a too-brief reprieve from the stifling uselessness. He’s spent too many days watching anxious and guilty over their house in his angel form, listening to Sarah’s rasping breaths and Steve’s stifled sobs. At least this small thing, this barely adequate protection, he can give to Steve.

It takes all of Bucky’s self-control not to shatter everything in a ten-mile radius the day Sarah’s lungs finally give up their feeble attempts to keep her alive. He just holds Steve as he breaks apart, glaring a fierce storm at anyone who so much as glances at them. He doesn’t need anyone to tell him this is unwise. He could get them both in trouble, not just from the Council but from prying human eyes wondering why two seventeen-year-old boys are so clingy in each other’s embrace. But he can’t bring himself to care, not even when the guy from across the street gives them a dirty look; Bucky just glares him down until he walks away, grumbling under her breath, and makes a mental note to give the guy a piece of his mind later.

Steve needs the reassurance right now, and Bucky’s gonna give it to him no matter what. Besides, Bucky’s too selfish to give up the comfort of Steve’s proximity. He’s far too selfish to turn away the chance to hold Steve close, to keep Steve’s face turned into his neck, to wrap his arms around Steve’s narrow, shaking shoulders.

The funeral is… difficult. He stands by Steve’s side for the little ceremony, lays a white flower to wilt over the patch of ground where Sarah’s body is. He wonders briefly where her Soul is, where her warmth has gone to. She won’t become an angel, not when no one is spending the Grace to pull her up into Heaven. What then? Does she just vanish into nothing? The thought of Sarah disappearing like that, leaving Steve behind, makes Bucky shudder with impotent outrage, and he has to leave once the ceremony is over so he doesn’t do something reckless and give himself away. He spreads his wings instead, as soon as he’s sure he’s away from watchful eyes, and just flies. Flies and flies and flies, aimless around the city that’s grown duller for her loss, and maybe lets himself scream a little. He spares half a breath to hope the Council isn’t watching him right now, before going back to looping desperate circles around New York skies.

It’s his concern for Steve that brings him back down in the end, even before the tremors in his limbs have fully subsided. His Grace slithers like an angry snake under his too-thin human skin, unruly in a way it hasn’t been since he was freshly created, but he forces himself to breathe deep and rein it in. _Steve_ is the one who buried his Ma today; Bucky needs to be there for him.

Steve looks terrible when Bucky catches up to him by the foot of his building, and a sharp spear of guilt goes through Bucky. “Hey,” he says gently, sliding in close to nudge against Steve’s side. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries, doesn’t ask if Steve’s okay. They both know the answer to that already. “Sorry I disappeared,” he says instead. “Wanted to punch something too bad, was afraid I’d knock out some poor guy’s teeth just for lookin’ at me.”

Steve lifts his head slowly, raising red-rimmed eyes to meet Bucky’s. “I wouldn’t mind. I could use a good brawl,” he says dully, dropping his head back down to stare at his hands. “Keep thinking about her face, you know? People talk about how death is supposed to look peaceful or something, but… but she just looked dead, Buck. She just looked so cold and still and _dead_ and—”

“I know, Steve, I know,” Bucky says, because he does. “She didn’t look nothing like herself. Why d’you think I wanted to punch something? Only, I don’t think she’d have wanted that. Fights, I mean. For me _or_ you.” Steve doesn’t respond, just follows listlessly after Bucky. Bucky’s not even sure Steve’s aware of anything, even the opening of the door as Bucky fishes out the poorly-hidden key from under the brick by the door and lets them in. He’s desperate, trying to think of ways to get Steve out of the grey vastness of his mind, to get Steve to at least _talk_ if not smile. He gently helps Steve into the sagging couch and turns to get them both water from the sink when Steve suddenly grips Bucky’s arm. “Yeah, Steve?” he prods, when Steve doesn’t say anything, just looks at Bucky intently. Steve looks some more, something unreadable shifting in the back of his cried-out eyes, and then—

And then Steve leans in, and for a heart-stopping moment, Bucky thinks their lips will meet somewhere mid-air. But Steve tilts his head at the last breath, and his lips brush past Bucky’s cheek as he tucks his head into the crook between Bucky’s neck and shoulder. Bucky shakes himself hard internally and recites all the million reasons he can’t have Steve. Not like that.

This—holding Steve close, comforting him, getting to be Steve’s support—this is more than enough.


	3. EARTH: Chapter 3

Steve is eighteen, and his Ma is dead, and he is going to follow her into an early grave if Bucky cannot figure out how to help him. There is nothing physically wrong with him—at least, not more than the usual dissonance of stuttering heartbeats and reluctant lungs—but Steve is dying, plain as day. It’s as if a part of him was left in the ground with Sarah’s cold body. Bucky hasn’t seen Steve smile in months. Hell, he hasn’t even seen Steve _cry_ in weeks. He almost wishes Steve were sick with something, coughing up a storm or burning a fever; at least then, he’d know how to help. All the Grace in the world is useless if he doesn’t know how to use it, and right now, Bucky is more clueless than a freshly-created Angelic tasting Grace for the first time. All he knows is that Steve lost his light the day Sarah died, the flames have yet to come back. Sometimes, in the dark nights when he watches Steve fall into another listless sleep, Bucky wonders if the embers are still alive, if there’s still anything left in Steve to be bright anymore.

He’s _desperate_ , weary to the core of watching Steve stare at walls, watching him starve because he can’t seem to find the energy to eat. Bringing Steve fancy foods doesn’t help. Telling whatever corny jokes he remembers doesn’t help. Nothing at all seems to help; the thunderclouds in Steve’s heart and eyes show no signs of ever retreating. So he does what desperate creatures are wont to do: he resorts to saying and doing everything in the hopes that something will take.

It’s one of those days when he fortuitously lands upon a solution. Granted, it’s a _ridiculous_ solution, but Bucky’s long past caring about that.

They’re sitting in Steve’s tiny flat on the hardened lump of a mattress when the idea strikes. Bucky can’t say where it comes from, and a part of him is already laughing at how _insane_ it is, but he opens his mouth anyway. “Hey, Stevie,” he says, forcing sunshine and lightness he doesn’t feel into his voice. “Listen, you wanna stay with me a coupla months? It’s just, ‘s getting cold is all, and it might be easier keepin’ warm if there’s two of us.”

Steve lifts his head and raises dull eyes to regard Bucky. There might be something like surprise shifting somewhere far beneath those thunderclouds. “Thanks, Buck. But I can get by on my own.”

Bucky wants to scream, wants to yell at Steve, because Steve very clearly _cannot_ get by on his own, not right now. But he hasn’t spent more than a decade by Steve’s side without learning something about him; if he yells, he’ll just trigger Steve’s obstinate side, and Steve will fight back, if only for the sake of it. That’s the farthest thing from what Bucky wants. He swallows his frustrated anger down, leaving it to simmer in his bloodstream, and pushes his grin wider instead. “Ever thought maybe _I_ can’t? Come on, you’d be doin’ me a favour, Steve. Bachelor like me, livin’ all by myself. ‘S boring. Kinda lonely. You know I’m crap at bein’ alone.”

Something in Steve’s eyes stirs, just a little. Bucky knows, right then, that he’s piqued Steve’s interest. There was always something protective about Steve, after all, something of a hero instinct, and the suggestion that he could help Bucky is reeling him in like a baited fish. Bucky wants to leap for joy, but it’s still too soon for that. He has to be careful, keep pulling slowly until Steve agrees.

“Don’t sleep much, these days,” Steve says after a long pause, but Bucky can tell the resistance is a little less stiff, now. “Wouldn’t wanna keep you up all night, tossin’ and turnin’. ‘Sides, I’ll really keep you up all night coughing if I get sick again.”  
“You _know_ I’ll just be here all the time if you get sick again. Save a guy some time, Stevie. It’ll be easier on me. Let me sleep some at my own place. Less rent, too, if we share an apartment.”

Steve winces a little, hating the reminder of what his poor health costs, and Bucky fears for a moment that he’s pushed too far. But after a long moment, Steve nods, a tiny dip of his head, and Bucky’s seized with an urge to hug him close, to kiss him. He settles instead for slinging an arm close around Steve’s too-thin shoulders, laughing with honest joy. “You and me, pal. It’s gonna be great fun.”

Reality reasserts itself an hour later, when they start packing up Steve’s stuff. Bucky hardly thought this through before opening his big mouth, which means there are _many_ glaring holes in this plan that he didn’t bother resolving. Most pressing of said problems is this: Bucky doesn’t _have_ a place. He’s a damn Cherub, and he’s never had a need for a permanent residence on Earth. Every time Steve’s asked to come over to Bucky’s place instead of his own, he simply broke into an empty tenement and made up some excuse about needing to move often. (He tries very hard not to think about how many lies he tells Steve on a daily basis. It’s just something he has to do, and the guilt won’t do him any good.) This time, though, that won’t work; he can hardly break into an apartment for months on end, or move every time the _actual_ tenant came home.

“Hey, Stevie,” he says, fighting to keep the panic out of his voice as an impossible plan forms in his head. “You good packin’ up on your own? I figured I should probably clean up a bit before I invite you over. Place is a real mess, and I didn’t bother neatening things up ‘cause I wasn’t sure if you’d say yes.”

“Sure,” Steve replies easily. “There’s not much left to pack, anyway. It’ll be done soon enough.” A little of the darkness seems to have lifted, now that Steve has something to do with his hands, something to distract his mind. Bucky hates leaving Steve alone to pack up an apartment still permeated with Sarah’s lingering presence, but it’s better than dragging Steve around out in the autumn evening chill with no home to go to. He’ll just have to be quick, and pray that nothing drags Steve down deeper into the slump while he’s gone.

Bucky flashes Steve a little grin as he heads out the door. “I’ll be back in, um, an hour tops. Sit around on the couch or somethin’ if you’re done before that. And don’t break anythin’ while I’m gone.” His human ears just barely catch the edge of Steve’s huff before the door closes behind him and his panic runs wild. He has _one hour_ to find a suitable place for him and Steve to stay in, possibly permanently. It’s a herculean task if there ever was one, but he doesn’t have time to sit around worrying. He shifts himself into angel form right there, just barely remembering to make sure no humans are watching, and takes off over the skylines to find something.

A viable apartment has to be close enough to move all of Steve’s stuff. Given Steve’s health, it probably shouldn’t involve too many stairs, either. Can’t be too fancy, or Steve’ll be suspicious where all the money’s coming from. Landlord needs to be willing to rent to a stranger on short notice, and not ask too many questions. He finds a tenement building a few blocks down from Steve’s that might fit the bill. It’s not the _nicest_ place around, but it’s not the worst, either. Lucky for him, there’s even an empty apartment on the third floor, and the landlord is an old lady whom he could probably charm into letting him rent.

Bucky turns back into human form in the corner of a dark alley a block away from the building, making himself smaller and paler than normal. He still needs to be recognizable as Bucky Barnes, but a little sympathy from an old lady wouldn’t hurt. He approaches the landlady with confident steps, cocky bravado painted on his face. Brave, confident, endearing—not too shy or naive, not from an eighteen-year-old.

“Good evening, Ma’am,” he says quietly, mustering as much charm as he can. “Have you got any apartments for rent? I know it’s short notice, and I’m sorry, it’s just… Me an’ my cousin, we just got kicked out of the house. Dad says he can’t feed so many mouths anymore. We figured it’d be easier to start out fresh together, get our feet under ourselves and all that, but it’s real hard finding someplace to stay.”

The old lady’s face hasn’t changed from its initial grumpy-suspicious frown, but Bucky _thinks_ he can sense some wavering in that shell. “You got any money?” she asks gruffly.

He quickly conjures a few coins in his pocket and sticks them out towards her. “‘S all I got for now, but my cousin’s got some, too, and it’s payday in a week.”

The landlady’s expression sheds a couple layers of suspicion upon seeing the coins in Bucky’s palm. “Rent’s due at the end of the month. You and your cousin gonna be able to make that?”

“‘M a paperboy, Ma'am, and so’s he. We can do more routes if it’s short for rent. And Mr. Taylor down at the docks said he could swing me a job workin’ there, so I can take that, too.” Steve lost his paper route months ago, and there’s no Mr. Taylor down at the docks, but there’s no need for her to know that. He can always conjure up more money, if it really gets tight; he’s less concerned about paying rent on time than about explaining to Steve where the money came from.

“Why ain’t your cousin here with you?” she asks, eyes narrowed, but Bucky can tell she’s all but ready to hand over the keys. She’s just asking one last time for the sake of it, trying to trip him up with something.

“Packing up, Ma'am. Or he was, when I left. He must be gettin’ real worried by now—I told him I’d be back when I had a place for us.” He flutters his eyelashes just a tad, grins up at her with all the charm he can pull together. “I bet he’ll be so glad when I tell him I got us a good place like this—and with such a nice landlady, too. Please, Ma’am, can’t we rent a room?”

“You boys better be no trouble,” she says with a huff, rummaging around in a drawer. A few moments later, she emerges with dishevelled hair and a dusty key. “Don’t be late on rent, and don’t be no trouble, and you can stay.”

“We won’t, Ma’am, I swear,” Bucky says, clasping the key tight enough to feel every ridge digging into his palm. This is perhaps the most important part; he has to cinch this deal, sink one more anchor in so that they don’t get kicked out a month later, and they’re set. “He’s an artist, you see, goes to school down in Manhattan. Quiet type, you know, sorta shy but real talented. He’ll be in the museums one day, just you wait. He’ll keep me in check too, I promise. Been doing it for years.” He lets the edge of his smile turn into a bit of a smirk. It’s not even really a lie, what he’s saying. Sure, he’s leaving out bits and pieces—like the part where Steve’s usually the troublemaker, and he’s the one dragging him out of fights—but the brunt of it is true. Well, some of it. It’s only _partly_ a lie. (It’s also possible he’s becoming entirely too good a liar, but that’s beside the point.) The important part is the way the landlady’s expression goes from gruff to surprised to secretly pleased. “Thank you, Ma’am! I’ll come back later with Stevie and our stuff.”

And with that, he all but sprints away, eager to bring Steve some good news and get away before she changes her mind. He barely remembers to visit the apartment long enough to conjure some furniture and clothes and whatnot, make it look lived in. By the time he crashes up the stairs towards Steve’s tiny apartment, he’s practically vibrating with excitement. It vanishes rapidly, however, when he opens the door and all but barrels straight into Steve. Steve, who is standing silent in the middle of the room, eyes faraway and vacant. Bucky nudges him a little with an elbow, excitement flipping over into concern in less than a heartbeat. Steve turns his head towards Bucky, his eyes wet and red-rimmed, and it’s all Bucky can do not to curse aloud.

“Come on, Steve,” he coaxes gently, resisting the urge to scoop up the small boy in his arms. “I cleaned up my place and everything, just for you.”

“It’s so empty,” Steve says quietly, so low Bucky barely catches it. “She was… she was _here_ , Buck, right here, and now she’s gone and it’s so empty without her. And when I leave, when I’m gone it’s gonna be like she was never here.”

“Shhhhh, it’s okay, Stevie. I know. I know,” Bucky whispers, all but cradling Steve in his arms as he guides them to sit on the floor. “But—but your Ma would want you to be happy. She’d be proud of you, you know. She’d be proud of _us._ ”

“You—you really think so, Bucky?”

“Yeah, Steve, I do. Look at us. C’mon, we’re gonna set off new, all on our own! With our own place and everything. Just two old bachelors, livin’ the high life in Brooklyn. And look at you—still here, still breathing, still goin’ to school and everything. She’d be real proud. I know I am.”

A watery shadow of a smile flits across Steve’s face. Bucky grins back, a new lightness in his limbs. He gently wipes the tears off of Steve’s wet cheeks with a shirtsleeve, and, for a reckless moment, he’s seized with the urge to lean in close to press his lips against Steve’s. He settles for running a hand through Steve’s hair, petting gently. Steve’s smile grows fond. Bucky’s toeing too close to a line, he knows, so he runs his fingers back through Steve’s hair a little harder, leaving it mussed up and wild this time. Steve swats his hand away, huffing, but his smile grows wider, stronger. Bucky looks at the tangled blond nest atop Steve’s head and laughs, a quiet sound echoed by the boxes and bags in the near-empty apartment.

Yeah, they’re gonna make it just fine.


	4. EARTH: Chapter 4

Bucky _knows_ he’s been tempting fate, all these years breaking practically every rule known to angels, but he didn’t expect it to come back to haunt him like this. He tries not to shake as he watches Steve pack a tiny bag, tries not to resent the excitement radiating from his friend. In fact, he tries very hard not to think at all about the _ridiculous, wholly inadvisable, foolish, insane thing_ he’s about to do. Any second now the Council could be listening, and he has no desire to attract any more anger from the Seraphim who could and would bring all the rage of Heaven down over their heads without a moment’s notice.

This is how he ends up here:

The human world is swept up in a war that seems to be ubiquitous, and Brooklyn is no exception. When it first breaks out, Bucky watches the news spread with a tense pit of fear deep in his stomach. He _knows,_  right then and there, that this war probably holds the Moment Steve’s being Guarded for, but that doesn’t stop him from hoping. And fighting. When the war makes its leap to the U.S.—when Japan hits Pearl Harbour, when the country finally announces its participation in this catastrophe—the knot in Bucky’s gut winds tighter, sits heavy as a stone tied to his spine, but he still keeps fighting.

Of course, “fighting” in this case doesn’t actually mean _fighting,_ either with fists or with guns. It means making sure the real fighting doesn’t snare Steve in its grip. It means distracting Steve as best he can, so that no hero instinct can drag Steve into the front lines.

It almost works, for the first little while, but the moment the president announces that the country is leaping into the fray, Steve’s right there at the enlistment office the very next morning. Bucky would’ve dragged him away physically, kicking and screaming, but by the time he gets there Steve’s already standing outside with a terribly dejected look and a card stamped 4F. Bucky bites back both a reprimanding tirade and a sigh of relief—thank _fuck_ the enlistment officer was smart enough to know Steve’s in no state to fight a war—since it would only piss Steve off.

“You should go in,” Steve says as soon as he spots Bucky, even before Bucky gets a breath in. “I’m sure they’ll take you in a heartbeat.” There’s bitterness in there, coiled inside Steve’s voice, and Bucky knows Steve’s angry at the betrayal of his own body. Bucky hesitates for a moment, because his answer is only going to piss Steve off more, but in the end he shakes his head. Steve’s eyes narrow immediately. “It’s a war, Buck, and innocent people are dying. You can’t just… stand by and watch. Not when you can help.”

“But who’s gonna look after you if I’m gone?” Bucky shoots back. He’s trying to keep his voice light, teasing, but the terrified fury simmering in his veins makes it difficult. “Someone’s gotta make sure you don’t do somethin’ stupid. Bet you wouldn’t need a battlefield to get yourself killed, Rogers.”

Steve tenses further, preparing himself for a fight. “I’m not a _child_. I don’t need you to look after me like… like I’m some invalid.”

Bucky relents a little. “Listen, I’ll think about it, okay? But you heard what they said, it’ll be over in a month and I’ll have gotten all decked out in uniform for nothin’. ‘Sides, someone’s gotta keep watch on the homefront, too.”

Steve is only a little bit mollified, the stony look still lodged in his jaw, but he nods stiffly. Bucky thinks fast. “C’mon, let’s go see a picture,” he says, drawing up a couple of rapidly-conjured coins from his pocket. “I was savin’ up for a special day, but you look like you could use some cheerin’ up.”

He spends the walk over to the theatre and the entire picture trying not to shake. He’d been so unbearably close to losing Steve. If Steve goes to war, there’s no way for Bucky to follow. First of all, James Buchanan Barnes _does not exist,_ and it’d be a hell of a ride tricking the US Army into accepting a nonexistent man _._ But more importantly, angels are very, very strictly forbidden from interfering in human warfare, excepting direct orders from the Council. And while the Council’s been uncharacteristically lenient so far, letting him get away with far more than he’d expected, there’s no way they’d let it slide if Cherub Buchanan, moniker: the Soldier, actually tries to join a human war. And even if he _could_ follow Steve into war, Guarding him in the middle of a battlefield is a completely different game from Guarding him in the middle of a civilian city, even one as large and messy as New York. He couldn’t keep Steve safe from every bullet and grenade and landmine, not without drawing heavy suspicion. He’d have to let Steve get hurt sometimes, let him break and bleed and suffer. Just thinking about it makes him sick to his very core. He has to keep Steve stateside, no matter what.

The weeks pass, and then months, falling into an uncomfortable pattern. Steve tries to enlist every couple of weeks with falsified information, complete with a new birthplace and date. He can’t fake the medical history, though, and Bucky could scream his thanks for that. As the war stretches on without him, Steve grows both angrier and more dejected. Bucky scolds Steve almost every time he tries to enlist, reminding him that it’s _illegal_ to lie on his enlistment forms, he could get arrested, dammit, and war’s no back alley, anyway. Steve usually just gets that obstinate hardness in his eyes, and waits out Bucky’s lecture only to try to talk Bucky into enlisting. This time, however, Bucky’s just as immovable as Steve. Sure, he’s yet to get used to the look of betrayed disappointment on Steve’s face each time he refuses to join up, but at least now he’s familiar with the sharp pang of pain that pierces him. He _hates_ being the cause of that expression on Steve’s face, but knowing the alternative isn’t an option he’s at liberty to choose makes it a tiny bit easier not to give in.

Bucky becomes an expert in distracting Steve. He takes them on more double dates than he can count, charming what feels like every girl in New York—Dorothy and Ruth and Angie and Evelyn and Betty and many, many more—into a date or two. He takes Steve out to see every new picture, and even the same one twice sometimes. They go to see _Bambi_ five times, because Steve loves the way the drawings move, and Bucky couldn’t care less about the dancing lines but he loves the way Steve gets entranced. They go to Coney more than once, too, just to watch the people and laugh at little nothings even if they can’t go on many rides. On one memorable occasion, Bucky does manage to coax Steve into riding the Cyclone with him. It’s truly exhilarating, the closest he’s ever felt to flying in his fragile human body, but the thrill wears off fast when they get off and Steve almost immediately throws up. Bucky hovers, uncertain and terrified and desperately apologetic, and Steve looks up with a weak smile despite the pallor of his cheeks.

“C’mon, Buck, I’m fine,” he reassures. “Just ate too much, is all. It was fun, I swear.” Bucky remains unconvinced. He frets over Steve the entire rest of the day, and Steve’s nice enough to let him, with a gleam of soft amusement in his eyes.

Today, though—today takes the prize, even among all the big and small events he’s planned for Steve the last few months. Bucky’s got them both tickets to Stark Expo, and he can hardly contain the excitement in his bones. Bright lights, flashy cars, fancy new tech… It’s gotta be enough to keep Steve engaged and therefore distracted for at least a week. Plus, he’s sweet-talked two girls into going out with them with promises of a dance afterwards, so Steve’ll be occupied all day for sure. No chance to run off to and try to enlist for the seventh or tenth time.

It’s good, for the first hour or so. The girls are excited enough, though Steve’s girl only gives him a cursory glance before cleanly ignoring him in favour of Bucky. Her loss, really; Bucky thinks Steve looks rather dashing, with his golden hair falling across his bony face to poke at summer-blue eyes. (And he’s really got to stop composing lyrics about Steve’s pretty face.) Howard Stark’s there, looking half-sized off in the distance, standing next to his bright red car under blinding beams of light. The car fucking _flies,_ if only for a few moments, and the entire crowd gasps. Even Bucky has to admit he’s impressed.

When he turns around to express that opinion, however, he finds Steve has disappeared. Gone, slipped out and vanished among the crowds. A few hundred yards away, Bucky spots the red-white-blue sign of an enlistment office, and there’s no question where Steve’s gone to. Dammit, he didn’t think they’d have an enlistment office at the _Expo_ of all places.

When Bucky catches up to Steve, he’s staring at his face, half-obscured in one of those painted mirrors that put your face over a soldier’s body. There’s that determined set in his jaw, and Bucky sighs and gives up talking Steve out of it before he even starts. “Really, Stevie?” he says instead, nudging him a little. “You’re leavin’ the girls for this again? C’mon, you’re gonna disappoint Lily.”

“She’s more interested in you anyway,” Steve replies distractedly. “They’re away from Brooklyn. It’s worth a try, at least.”

“And then what, Steve?” Bucky shoots back, unable to keep his voice from sharpening. “Let’s say someone’s crazy enough to let you join up. What then? It’s a _war_ , Steve! This isn’t a back alley anymore! You get hit, you’re not getting’ back up!”

“Fine, then, so I might die!” Bucky has to fight back a wince at the thought, but Steve’s too busy all but shouting to notice, quivering with frustration and directionless rage. “I almost die every winter anyway, what’s the difference? I can’t just stay here, Bucky! I’m not stupid, I know it’s war, but they’re still bullies hurtin’ innocent people. _That’s_ why I gotta join. There are people layin’ down their lives every day. I got no right to do any less.”

“Right. This isn’t about you, huh,” Bucky says, and he _knows_ it’s a low blow, knows it’s nasty and mean, but he’s angry and desperate and frightened. “You got nothing to prove, Stevie? Really?”

“I gotta try,” Steve says obstinately, and Bucky shakes his head. “I gotta at least try, Bucky. I have to.”

“Fine,” Bucky says, long since tired of this argument. There’s no way this’ll end with anything but a disappointed Steve, yet again. Besides, he sees the girls waving at him from a couple dozen yards away, and if Steve won’t take the distraction, maybe it’ll help Bucky to distract himself with dances for a while. “Listen, just don’t do anything stupid like get arrested, okay? Can’t do anything for you in prison, Stevie.” He gives Steve a quick embrace—nothing lingering enough to draw suspicion—and saunters off towards the girls. A face catches the edge of his vision as he walks away: some scientist, Bucky thinks, with a wizened beard and a too-sharp gleam in his eyes behind the gentle-looking glasses. Something instinctive in his stomach plunges. Maybe it’s just paranoia, or maybe it’s his own Grace warning him of what’s coming. All Bucky knows is that despite his kind appearance, the man’s setting off all sorts of alarms in his mind, especially the way he looks intently at Steve.

He makes some half-hearted excuses for the girls, barely noticing their hurt and disappointed looks as he turns his back on them and slips into a deserted alley. Barely a heartbeat later, he’s flying above the Expo with his wings spread wide, and then he settles in the little room where that man is mid-conversation with Steve.He finds it hard to concentrate on their words, too busy fighting back panic and keeping himself from interfering where he’s not allowed. All he manages to catch is something ridiculous about a top-secret program, experimental drugs, super soldiers, little guys. It’s enough. When the doctor finally reaches for a stamp and marks Steve’s card with dark ink, Bucky’s skin grows cold.

He’s still reeling when Steve walks out, looking equal parts elated and determined, with a card impossibly stamped 1A in his hand. His heartbeat sounds much too loud in his ears. Horror wells up from every crevice in his bones. Steve didn’t just _enlist,_ oh no. He’s been pulled into some crazy, dangerous, top-secret scheme by a crazy German doctor.

This is it, Bucky realizes with terrifying certainty. This is leading up to Steve’s Moment. And the only option left to him now is to follow Steve into it and make sure he doesn’t get killed before he reaches his Moment, rules and common sense be damned.

Bucky walks in the enlistment office a minute later, back in human form with a forged enlistment form in his hand. It’s really an easy matter to get himself in the army; turns out no one’s really bothering to check if people are actually who they say they are. Getting himself into the little program of Steve’s is harder, but Bucky manages with a little coaxing, an earnest story about a father who died in the division and a _friend_ already waiting for him there (and maybe a touch of questionably-allowed Grace.)

As he walks out, a 1A card like Steve’s gripped tight in his hands, an irresistible force traps him in place. He’s not frightened, really, having expected it since the moment he made this insane decision, and he has enough time to make sure he’s facing a wall with a thoughtful look before he finds himself completely frozen in this body.

 _I swear I won’t fight,_ he thinks immediately as another presence bores into his mind. He does his best not to let the desperation seep into his thoughts, although he’s rather certain they already know the real reason why he’s doing this. _I know the rules. I know I’m not allowed to intervene, and I won’t. I’ll never fire a gun. I just have to go with him if I am to Guard him properly._

 _Be careful, Soldier,_ a voice echoes in his own skull. _You are pushing the lines_. _We will be watching you very closely._ And then Buchanan’s left mercifully alone in his own mind—or well, as alone as he’s ever going to get with the Council watching his every move, the warning hanging like a guillotine blade over his head. He spends a moment gathering himself, getting breath back into his shocked human body and letting Grace bolster his strength. Then he sets out purposefully, following Steve’s path mere minutes ago. When he finally catches up to Steve in their little apartment, Steve’s already packing, and all but trembling with excitement.

“Bucky, you won’t believe it!” he cries as soon as the click of the door announces Bucky’s entrance. “I— I just enlisted!”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky says, forcing false cheer into his voice. “Knew exactly what happened the second I saw you walk out of that place with a stupid grin all over your face.”

Steve looks up, startled, but it’s not enough to chase the joy off his face. “’M not allowed to talk about it much, but it’s like this special program by this German doctor, Dr. Erskine, and he’s—”

“Wait, no way,” Bucky interrupts, letting his eyes go wide in false surprise.

Steve shoots him a confused look, and then understanding slowly dawns on his face, tinged with heavy surprise. “Buck, you—?”

“I went in, soon as I saw you leave. Wasn’t gonna let you go off to war on your own, no way. I thought I was screwed when the doctor talked to me, told me I was getting pulled into the program. I thought I’d ended up somewhere weird, somewhere I couldn’t find you.”

Steve whoops, unrestrained and ecstatic. “Bucky, this is incredible! You and me both! We’re gonna go win this war, that’s what we’re gonna do. Hitler doesn’t have a chance, not now.”

Bucky forces himself to grin back at Steve. The depth of his dread mirrors the height of Steve’s joy.

The clock’s ticking, now. It’s only a matter of time.


	5. EARTH: Chapter 5

Camp Lehigh is nothing like what Bucky expected.

To be fair, he really isn’t sure what he _did_ expect; he knew, rationally, that a human Army camp would not look like the kind of training space he’s used to in Heaven, but he doesn’t exactly have another frame of reference. All he knows is that the first couple of days at Basic, he keeps finding himself uncertain and even incompetent, which is not something he’s used to. He _is_ the Soldier, after all, and training grounds are practically a second home to him.

He doesn’t care much for the neverending throng of unfamiliar humans around camp, and he doesn’t make much effort to remember names or faces. A few, however, do make enough of an impression to stick around.

Exhibit A: Private Gilmore Hodge. Hodge is exactly the kind of alpha male Bucky dreaded having to face when he and Steve left for Lehigh. Sure, he’s physically fit, not entirely brainless, and top of the class in whatever exercise they do, but he’s also an asshole down to the very blood in his veins. Overconfident, cocky, always ready to prove his dominance and masculinity—and idiocy, in Bucky’s opinion—by bullying the smallest guy around. The fact that said smallest guy around is Steve definitely does not influence Bucky’s hatred of the man. Absolutely not. It’s just Steve rubbing off on him. Steve hates asshole bullies, Hodge is an asshole bully, therefore Bucky also hates Hodge the asshole bully. Simple. Besides, Hodge would make a _terrible_ soldier in the field. He doesn’t have an ounce of cooperative spirit in his body. Quite the opposite, really: he’s all too ready to sabotage others (namely Steve) both for social standing and simply for amusement. Guy like that would get his entire unit killed one day.

Exhibit B: Colonel Chester Phillips. Phillips doesn’t make much of an impression on his own; gruff and stern with eyes fixed solely on victory, he’s more or less like every other commander Bucky’s met. Under it all, he might be a little kinder, a little warmer than the Seraphim that have commanded the Soldier—Bucky gets the feeling the guy might genuinely be upset to lose a few of his men—but at the end of the day, he’s just a commander. The only reason Bucky remembers him, really, is that Phillips is the guy deciding who among this camp of crazy idiots gets to be his science experiment. Phillips and Erskine, to be precise, but Erskine’s heart is already set on Steve, so Bucky’s only chance lies in Phillips. He doesn’t actually think the guy will go for Steve—he’s seen the Colonel and the doctor argue about it more than once—but knowing Steve, he’s not ready to put his guard down just yet. Not until this whole mess is over, and Steve is back home away from this deadly war, or safely past his Moment and off somewhere making history. Until then, he’s Bucky’s responsibility, and Bucky’s not going to let something happen because he got careless. So he keeps an eye on Phillips and pays attention.

Exhibit C: Agent Peggy Carter. Carter is one incredible woman. She’s the only woman in the entire place, which is enough to make Bucky’s head snap up the first time he sees her around. Person like that isn’t someone you overlook, not unless you’re an idiot. The fact that she allows no one to underestimate her, and socks Hodge square in the jaw that first day, only makes Bucky more interested. And then—and then he notices the way her eyes linger over Steve, and before the jealous thing in his stomach (which has no reason to exist at all, dammit) can do more than growl, he realizes Steve’s looking back at her the exact same way. Wide eyed, a little shocked, allured, shy… like he’s not sure how this wonder fell into his life, but he doesn’t want to let it go.

Bucky should be happy for Steve. He _is_ happy for Steve. Carter’s smart, witty, beautiful, and terrifyingly competent; plus, she’s the first person to really see how _good_ Steve is. Steve would be so happy with her, once all this is over. A nice little place with a yard, bunch of blonde and brown-haired kids running around, Steve beautiful as always as he watches, Carter still wicked sharp by his side… Bucky can see the picture clear as day in his head, and his lips twitch. Steve deserves that. And if it aches somewhere in between his ribs, if it makes his stomach clench painfully, if an ugly part of him wants to tear the picture to pieces, well… Bucky’s a fucking Cherub. He can deal with it.

He's no masochist, though, and he finds himself drawing away from Steve whenever he and Carter are together. He doesn’t want to be the murky shadow in the background of their fledgling friendship-and-maybe-more. Instead, he increases his surveillance both human and celestial on Phillips, and what he sees is reassuring. The colonel is still adamant that Hodge is the best candidate for the serum. Bucky thinks that’s stupid, thinks making Hodge the first supersoldier in human history is a frankly _terrible_ idea, but that’s not his concern. It’ll probably kill Hodge, anyway, and Bucky _is_ mean enough not to be sorry about that. He doesn’t care much about anything else, about this war or the supersoldiers, as long as it won’t be Steve with those needles in his arms.

Steve, apparently, disagrees. Bucky thought Steve was just glad to be in the Army at all, and willing to take whatever stupid risks it took to get there. And that might have been true at first, but now? Now, Steve is actually committed to this thing. He _wants_ to be the supersoldier. Bucky tries to talk Steve out of it, but it’s difficult to get a moment private enough in an army base, and Bucky’s wary of using his Grace with the Council’s warning still echoing in his ears. He settles for glaring at everything and anything, instead, and willing Steve to understand just how much of an insane endeavor this whole project is.

It doesn’t work.

They’re about a week away from the procedure when everything changes. It’s a painfully normal day, running laps and doing drills and looping through endless exercise routines. Carter’s instructing them through a round of pushups and jumping jacks when, suddenly, something small and round comes rolling towards them.

“Grenade!” yells a voice—Bucky thinks it’s Phillips, but he doesn’t have the presence of mind to be sure—and everyone scrambles in a panic. Most move _away_ from the grenade, like sane people ought to do. Exactly three people move towards it: Carter, Steve, and Bucky. More precisely, Carter takes three steps towards the grenade, but Steve is closer, faster, and he’s there before her. Bucky, cursing himself for failing to keep a better watch for threats, lunges for Steve. But Steve’s already curled himself on the ground. Wrapping his small body tight around the explosive as if he could contain the blast with his soon-to-be-pulverized bones.

“Get back!” he shouts, flailing a thin arm in the air.

For one terrible moment, Bucky thinks this is it. Fear wipes his mind clean, leaves him unable to do anything but stare in abject horror. He forgets even to use the Grace roaring like an angry sea under his skin, and by the time he remembers, the whole camp is looking around in wary puzzlement. The grenade hasn’t burst yet. Steve uncurls, just a little, his brows drawn together to form a confused rift above his nose.

“It’s a dummy,” says one of the drill sergeants dismissively. Bucky glances about wildly, until he finds Phillips and Erskine standing by an ammunitions truck. Phillips looks put out. Erskine looks a mixture of smug and amused, a distinctly _I told you so_ gleam in his eyes. A growl forms in Bucky’s throat, and he wants so badly to give them both a piece of his mind, but someone else needs to face his fury first.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind, Rogers?” he yells, disregarding the eyes and heads that turn in his direction. “You plannin’ on gettin’ yourself killed before you even make it to battle? _Christ,_ what the hell did you think you were doing?”

Steve looks startled by Bucky’s outburst, but the surprise slides quickly into anger of his own. “What the hell was I supposed to do, stand and watch? _Run_?”

“ _Yes!_ God dammit, Steve, I know you think running’s the worst thing you could ever do, but sometimes it’s the _right_ thing!”

“Not this time it wasn’t! If you start running, you’ll never stop. You _know_ that, Bucky!”

“This is a fucking _grenade_ , Steve, not some bully with a mean fist! You run _away_ from grenades, not _towards_ them! What the _fuck_ was all of this for, if you’re just gonna get yourself killed before you even make it to battle?”

“You think I don’t—”

“If that had been a real grenade,” says a firm voice, and they both spin around to find Carter standing right next to them. Bucky hadn’t even heard her approach, so caught up was he in his anger. “And Private Rogers had chosen to run, all of us would be dead. He’d have saved all our lives, jumping on it like that.”

“Yeah, and he’d be a bloody pile of bone fragments,” Bucky spits out, vicious. Carter doesn’t look fazed, and that somehow only angers Bucky further. He can feel Steve’s righteousness burning like a bonfire behind him, fueled by Carter’s support, and he can’t stand this anymore. He spins on his heels and stalks away, ignoring even Phillips and Erskine in favor of hiding away in an isolated corner of the camp.

He stretches his wings there, letting himself rise back into angel form. It’s nice, being celestial again, even if he’s still trapped in Earth’s shitty metaphysical dimension. Grace still buzzes angry in his bones, and it takes everything he has not to blow the camp to bits the way that grenade could have blown Steve apart. Breathe. He has to remember to fucking breathe.

After what seems like forever, Bucky finally feels like he _might_ not obliterate the first person that so much as looks at him the wrong way. He takes another deep breath, swings his wings a few times just for the sheer sensation of it, and forcefully reminds himself that he’s a _Cherub._ Not just any Cherub, either; he is the Soldier. He has fought a war for Heaven. He has defeated demons from Hell. A few humans with a crazy plan and a boy plagued with recklessness bordering on a death wish are not going to be what defeats him. Not a chance.

He can do this. He can do his fucking job as Steve’s Guardian and make sure no one, not even Steve himself, can kill him.

The next week is an exercise in increasing frustration. Steve won’t budge, no matter how much Bucky pleads and teases and coaxes and yells. They part ways simmering with anger more than once, and each fight lodges like daggers between the delicate bones of Bucky’s ribs. Erskine looks prouder and prouder each day, keeps giving Phillips these smug glances. Even Phillips, Bucky’s last hope, is swaying more and more firmly on Steve as the candidate. Bucky doesn’t dare rely on Grace to sway Phillips’ opinion, so he’s reduced to watching.

It’s absolutely infuriating, yes, but no matter. It’s a bump in the road, he can admit that, but it’s not a disaster. Worst comes to worst, Bucky can use his Grace to make sure Steve survives this godforsaken procedure. It’ll be okay.

* * *

Steve is screaming. The light is blinding, the light is burning, and _Steve is screaming_. It sounds like the light is killing him, and every alarm Bucky has embedded in Steve’s body is screaming as well. Steve is fucking _dying_.

Bucky’s watching in his angel form, horrified and terrified, from his perch above the whole scene. It only takes a second after the chamber’s doors close like a coffin’s lid for the screaming to start. After one frozen heartbeat, Bucky frantically coalesces his Grace, the blue light gathering behind him, the buzz tingling in his fingers. The energy rises to an uncontainable level, and Bucky’s just about to let it burst when something clamps down on him like a vice. It traps his Grace in place, traps _him_ in place, and Bucky feels like he’s going to shatter apart with the unreleased tension of it all.

It has to be the Council. It _has_ to be. Nothing else but a couple of Seraphim could block his Grace so completely, not when the Soldier is channelling every iota of himself into it. He doesn’t fucking understand _why_. Steve is dying—surely the supposedly-omniscient Council can tell that much—and he _should_ be allowed to intervene. Fuck, why are they stopping him?

 _He’s dying_ , Bucky shouts in his own head, desperate and frightened. _He’s dying, damn it, let me help him!_

There’s no response. Bucky’s not even sure they’re listening.

He glances back at Steve. The blinding light slowly tears him to pieces. The damn serum eats up every last inch of that precious fragile body. He can _feel_ the pain burning through Steve.

Steve is _still fucking screaming._ Hoarse. Desperate. Agonized.

Panic rises in Bucky’s throat.


	6. EARTH: Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE 8/22: now including art by the genuinely incredible maichan808. I have no words for how gorgeous her piece is. 
> 
> You can find her tumblr post, with a detail of Bucky's face, [here](http://maichan808.tumblr.com/post/149368246517/here-is-the-first-of-my-stucky-big-bang-pieces-i).

Bucky does the only thing he can: he rushes up to the Council.

It kills him to leave Steve when he’s _dying, fuck, Steve is dying_ , but Bucky is no use to him when his Grace is being forcefully held back. His only hope—Steve’s only hope—lies in finding out whatever the fuck the Council thinks it’s doing.

There’s guards, of course there’s guards outside the Council, but they’re on watch for a demon attack from Hell, not some desperately furious Cherub, and Bucky uses that moment of confusion to force his way into the Council.

Bucky has never stepped foot into the actual headquarters of the Council of Seraphim, the sacred ground where countless meetings are held. No one, of course, is privy to the content of those meetings except the Council itself, much less allowed on the grounds. The opulence and the imposing grandiosity of it might have taken Bucky aback, another time. At the moment, he hardly has the presence of mind to be cowed by too many pairs of eyes focusing on him as he bursts through. Under normal circumstances, so many glaring eyes—all of them belonging to the most powerful Seraphim alive—would be enough to induce at least a moment of hesitation, even in a Cherub as powerful as the Soldier. But Bucky has discovered a height of desperation, of sheer terror, that overwhelms even centuries of training and instinct.

No one speaks for just a moment, held frozen in a silent, pregnant tension. Maybe he managed to take even the Council by surprise. Maybe they were expecting him to burst in, and are simply humouring him. Maybe, just maybe, with his Grace roaring in his veins and his aura burning full-force behind him, the Soldier is enough to hold the Council in fear for just a single moment.

“Let me save him,” Bucky gasps out, shattering the tension. He’s not actually out of breath, shouldn’t be _capable_ of being out of breath, but something cinches around his chest like a vice, and breath comes in stuttered heaves. “You have to let me save him.”

A few brows frown, ready to rain down condemnation on him for daring to speak out against the Council—for daring to tell them what they _have_ to do, as if he knows better or has more power. “That is not your place to decide, Soldier,” says a Councillor before Bucky has a chance to continue. “You know very well that angels are not to interfere in human warfare. You have already been warned once. We will not be so lenient a second time.”

Bucky’s not blind to the threat thinly veiled in those words. He’s not stupid. That isn’t a warning, any more than that time they caught him outside the drafting office. That is a command. The oppressive atmosphere in the Council is affecting him somewhere deep, making him stand stiffer, making him obedient and respectful. Something in him cringes at the thought of defying a command, even a veiled one. But the part of him that cringes away from the thought of Steve screaming, bleeding out, poisoned, _dying_ , is stronger still. “I swore I would not fight, and I have not. I swore I would not fire a weapon, and I have not. I am not breaking any decrees. I am merely asking permission to carry out the task you assigned me to do. I am to Guard him, and he is _dying._ Is it not my role to prevent that? Let me save him.” His own words echo too-loud in his ears, and he can taste subservience in every forced and proper syllable, but speaking out at all is enough of a rebellion; he does not have the energy to spare on breaking the conventions of address.

“You act as if you do not understand, Buchanan, yet we know you are wiser than that. It is not your place to decide, nor question what we decide.”

His full name takes Bucky by surprise. It’s been so long since he’s been _Buchanan,_ both in his own mind and in others’ words. It’s much easier now to be Steve’s friend Bucky than Cherub Buchanan, and that frightens him into a momentary silence. “He is _dying_ ,” Bucky says eventually, all too aware of how helpless and desperate he sounds. “Is my role as his Guardian simply to watch as he suffers?”

“You were assigned to Guard the Soul, and you have done so admirably,” one of the Councillors says with false kindness. Bucky recognizes him as the Seraph who initially gave him this Guarding assignment. “We are aware that it was not without difficulties, given the… fragility of the body. Your task is now over, Buchanan. You are relieved from this duty. The Soul has reached his Moment. He will either survive this procedure, or he will not. Should he survive, he will become the Savior who can end this war among humans. Should he die, another Guarded Soul will take his place.

“This is why you may not save him, Soldier. It rests only in his hands, now.”

The world seems to narrow, the edges falling away to shadow. His chest feels like it is being crushed to dust. His eyes ache. His fingers tremble. Another Councilor speaks, but Bucky barely hears it over the thick void closing over him.

This is supposed to be Steve’s Moment. This is the shining pinnacle of Steve’s destiny, his transformation point, and it is going to kill him. The Council knows, they must know as well as he does, that it is already killing Steve.

Steve is going to die.

Bucky stalks out of the Council without waiting to be dismissed. He can almost see their scandalized faces, gasping at his disrespect, but not a single iota of his being cares. Steve is dying. Steve is going to die. Steve is going to _die._

He hardly remembers how he gets back to Earth, only blinking back into awareness at the sound of Steve’s screaming. Barely a few seconds have passed on Earth as he confronted the Council, so Bucky is treated to the experience of Steve’s death in full force. Trembling with fear, he reaches out a tendril of Grace and lets it snake into Steve’s body. The pain of it almost knocks him away. He can practically feel Steve’s body slowly disintegrating as the serum spreads, unable to meet the strenuous demands of the physical transformation it’s being forced through. Christ, Steve is still screaming, and dying, and he can’t do anything but watch.

Bucky wonders in that desperate way powerless men are wont to do. What’s going to happen when Steve dies? He mused briefly on the same question when Sarah died, but there’s a new urgency to his racing thoughts now. Angels stopped wasting Grace raising every deceased Soul into Heaven long ago. As far as Bucky’s aware, no one knows or cares to find out what happens to dying humans now. There’s rumours that human Souls dissipate, or go to Purgatory, or their own version of Hell, but that’s more gossip that legitimate speculation. Bucky remembers learning, many centuries ago, that without Grace to pull them into Heaven, Souls dissipate into the fabric of the universe when they die. They become part of everything, or so he’d been told. He remembers thinking it sounded more like they became nothing. Rarely, legendarily, there are some Souls deemed important or worthy enough to become angels after death.

Bucky doesn’t want Steve to disappear. He can’t stand the very thought of Steve vanishing, of every trace of his existence consumed by the careless vastness of the universe. He trembles with the need to do something. He remembers, in a flash of clarity, the first time he saw Steve properly. Remembers that dingy alley, the dull thud of punches landing. Remembers how _bright_ Steve burned, how much his aura glowed with pure good.

He can’t possibly let that much good go to waste. He cannot let Steve die, cannot let him disappear. Not while there’s still life left in his being. Steve is still screaming below him, the sounds growing slowly hoarser as strength saps out of his body. There isn’t time to hesitate.

He doesn’t understand what he’s going to do until the very moment he does it. His entire being shudders like an earthquake is roaring within. He strains against the binds blocking his Grace, even though it feels like shredding his own bones. He keeps fighting, pouring every last drop of Grace into it. He strains. He fights. He pushes.

Something snaps, finally, and his Grace expands outward like an erupting volcano. Beneath him, Steve’s stopped screaming, breathing in shallow ragged gasps. His heart is stuttering offbeat, too fast then too slow. For one unstoppable, iridescent moment, Bucky thinks he is burning in his own Grace. It stretches out and encompasses Steve in shimmering blue, just as Steve’s lungs and heart both fall apart.

It feels like warmth. It feels like home. It feels like the comfort of a peaceful sleep.

Bucky gives in to the sleep, to the darkness edging in his vision.

Steve is safe, now, with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the suspense!! I'll be posting the rest of the fic a chapter at a time up to the 29th, barring some catastrophe (like, say, a failed internet connection).  
> Any comments/concrit/feedback/kudos/etc are deeply appreciated :)  
> Come find me at capgal on tumblr!


	7. HEAVEN: Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE 8/27: Now including art by the lovely milollita!! You can find the original tumblr post [here](http://milollita.tumblr.com/post/149414008086/if-heaven-and-hell-decide-by-capgal-steve-grins), but be warned it contains spoilers for later parts of the fic!

# PART II: HEAVEN

The world is soft.  
The world is soft and warm and quiet.  
He is floating in the soft, warm, quiet world.  
He is floating, and it is dark.  
No, it is not dark—his eyes are closed.  
The world is soft, warm, quiet, and maybe dark, and his eyes are closed.

Steve opens his eyes to a gentle light. It’s white and floaty and soft. A solid warmth encircles him, holding him in a comforting embrace. He turns around, marvelling briefly at the fluidity of his own limbs. Bucky’s face swims into view. A smile pulls on Steve’s lips, and he lets the corners of his lips rise up. _Bucky’s here._

He looks even more beautiful than usual, bathed in the warm white light. Sleep has softened the line of Bucky’s jaw, the peaks of his cheekbones, and he seems younger without the sharp edges. Dark hair falls across his forehead, casting little shadows above his brows that dance like leaves in the summer breeze. Steve has to fight down the urge to run a possessive hand down Bucky’s face, just to feel the smoothness of his skin and the scratch of barely-there stubble. The desire to watch Bucky open grey-blue eyes and curl his soft lips into a smile wars with the desire to catalogue every detail of his sleep-slack face. Steve’s fingers itch for a pencil, for some way to capture to gentle stillness of the moment.

And then he remembers.

The procedure—he remembers being terrified and nervous and excited. He remembers the straps, the prick of the needles, the clang of metal as the door closed over him. And then the pain, oh God, the _pain._ It had burned him through and through, speared every inch of his body. He remembers thinking it was going to kill him. He remembers his bones crumbling, his heart racing too fast, his vision going white. He remembers light. And then—

And then? Nothing. Until now.

Bucky must have saved him. Brought him here, wherever here is. Given that the last thing he remembers is bone-crushing pain, Steve would expect to wake up in a hospital, but this feels nothing like any hospital he’s ever seen (and he’s seen a lot of them). This looks nothing like anything he’s ever seen, really, hospital or not. _Steve_ doesn’t feel like anything he’s ever felt. There’s no ache in his joints, no tightness in his lungs. His chest feels odd, and it takes him a minute to realize it’s the absence of the familiar off-beat stutter in his heart. Confusion fogs the brilliant moment of awakening, tugging his brows together.

Steve focuses again on Bucky—Bucky who is still there, with his arms wrapped around Steve. Bucky who hasn’t moved a single inch, might not even have breathed. Panic in his throat, Steve nudges Bucky in the side gently, then harder, and harder again. Bucky twitches a little, tightening his arms convulsively around Steve. Steve waits a breathless moment, and then he pushes at Bucky again, shouting his name this time.

Bucky jolts awake with a gasp, looking around with wild eyes. Something blue and tingly dances over his skin, and Steve finds himself at once shocked and entranced. White teases at the edges of his vision, and he cranes his neck to find wings— _wings!_ —sprouting from Bucky’s shoulder blades.

“What the _fuck_ ?” Steve says. There are _wings_ on Bucky’s back.

Bucky looks at Steve, that wildness still in his eyes. His arms abandon their circle around Steve, patting down the entire expanse of Steve’s body instead. Steve lets him, even as tension ratchets up his spine. Only after running his hands over every inch of him does Bucky seem to relax, an awed look in his eyes.

“Holy _shit,_  it actually worked,” he breathes. “It actually fucking worked.”

“Listen, I’m really glad it worked,” Steve says wryly, “I really am, but could you please kindly tell me what the fuck ‘it’ is _?_ ”

Bucky blinks, and then laughs. It’s loud and maybe a little hysterical, but Steve pretends not to notice that part. “This is _so weird_. It’s like everything’s flipped now. Hell, I can’t imagine how weird it must be for you. Wow. Wow.”

“You’ve said a lot of words, and you’ve told me exactly nothing,” Steve says. He means to say it exaggeratedly slow, sarcastic, but ends up talking fast enough to trip over his own tongue; he might be freaking out, just a little.

“Where the hell do I even start? This is. This is so much. Okay, um, here’s the first thing: I’m an angel. So are you.”

“…Angels.”

“Fuck, okay. Yes, angels. We’re real, by the way. God, not so sure. Definitely not the way humans think. Uh, you’re in Heaven, that’s also real. So is Hell, but I hope you never have to see that.”

“Heaven,” Steve repeats. He probably sounds like a broken record, but he can’t help himself; what Bucky’s saying is somewhere between Bible stories and utter _nonsense._ Bucky’s an angel. _He’s_ an angel. In Heaven. “So, does this mean I’m… I’m dead?”

Bucky winces, but nods. “Sorry, pal. I wanted to save you, but it was beyond my abilities. You’re in Heaven now, though, which hopefully makes up for some of it.”

Steve makes an indistinct sound that might be agreement. His mind races, struggling to keep up with the sudden changes and new information. “Is my Ma here? In Heaven? Can I see her?”

Bucky grimaces, and Steve’s his heart sinks. “She… she’s not here, Steve. Most people never make it here. It’s, it’s not like what they teach in your churches. We stopped raising human Souls centuries ago. It’s only in very exceptional cases, nowadays, that they make an angel out of a human.”

“And I…?”

“Oh, no. At least, not as far as I know. I was just assigned to be your Guardian—um, that basically means something made you possibly important in human history, and it was my job to keep you alive until then. You know, in case something stupid like pneumonia killed you before you get to become important. Or a demon, maybe. Point is, Guarding you means keeping you alive.”

“And the serum—“

“The serum was the pivotal moment, or so they tell me. Remember, you were _possibly_ important in history. But your body was giving out faster than the serum was getting in you, fixing you up. You were dying, and dying fast. So, uh, I might have gotten desperate. I’m honestly not sure what I did, I just know I was scared and I wrapped you up in Grace—you know what that is, right?—and well, here we are.”

“Here we are. Angels. What the _hell_ , Buck.” Under the shock, there’s a thrum of betrayal snaking dark tendrils through him. All these secrets, all these years… Steve always thought he knew Bucky, but as it turns out, there’s an entire _world_ of Bucky’s that Steve was never privy to. The overwhelming torrent of novelty numbs the pain of it for now, leaving only a dull ache somewhere inside his ribcage, but Steve suspects it will soon grow to sting terribly.

“More precisely, I think you’re an Angelic. Oh, um, there’s four tiers of angels, so to speak. Angelics at the bottom, then Archangels, then Cherubim, and Seraphim on the very top. Angelics are the weakest in Grace, Seraphim are the strongest. You’re probably an Angelic. I’m a Cherub. Although—” Bucky pauses a moment, swinging his wings lazily as he closes his eyes. “I overreached, exhausted my Grace. It’ll probably take me a while to get back to full.”

It’s Steve’s turn to frown now, concern overriding everything else. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says, shoving lightly at Bucky.

“Yeah I did,” Bucky shoots back, poking hard at Steve’s shoulder. “What, you expect me to just watch you die? No way.”

Steve’s about to respond, ready to tell Bucky exactly what he should’ve done instead of exhausting himself trying to save Steve, but a rustling sound makes him turn. There are—there are wings coming out of his own back. Large and fluffy, with white feathers rustling softly. He reaches out a hand slowly, disbelieving, and runs a finger lightly down the edge. He shivers. It feels… it feels odd, but in a good way. Like tickles down the back of his shoulders, tingling along his spine, but gentler. “I have wings,” Steve says flatly. “ _Wings._ I have… I have wings?”

“Yeah you do, Steve,” Bucky says, amused. “Angels, remember? Give ‘em a try, I promise it’s more fun than walking everywhere.”

Steve’s not quite sure if Bucky’s messing with him, but his fascination and curiosity is stronger than his wariness of being tricked. Cautiously, he stretches newfound muscles, and his wings spread behind him. Fully outstretched, they’re _massive_ , wide enough to reach far past his arm span and long enough to brush his heels. Steve gives them an experimental flap, shoots a foot in the air, and lands on unsteady feet. Bucky laughs. Steve glares, tries again, and makes it up three swoops of his wings before he tips too far to the right, unbalances himself, and lands face first. The ground isn’t hard, thank God, not like Steve expected it to be, but his ego’s pretty bruised. Especially with Bucky’s voice, now fully cackling, right by his ears.

“It’s like watching a—a baby elephant learn to fly!” Bucky gasps out between breathless stretches of laughter. “It’s been _ages_ since I’ve watched a fresh Angelic trying to figure out how wings work.”

Steve drags himself upright, pouting only a little, and he’s about to rib Bucky about something or another when he realizes— “Am I… why am I _glowing,_ Bucky?”

“Why are you what?” Bucky asks, still laughing, but he sobers up fast. “Oh. _Oh._ Uh, that’s… that’s called an aura. It’s this light that surrounds you, but it’s different for everyone. Kinda like fingerprints, y’know?”

“Why aren’t you glowing, then?” Steve asks, baffled. The white-gold aura bathing his skin is nowhere to be found around Bucky.

“Um. It’s just, well, auras are considered to be pretty private for angels. Walking around with your aura exposed is sorta like… like walking around naked. You get used to keeping it masked, showing it only when you want to, only for people you really trust.”

“Why didn’t you _tell me that_ ?” Steve demands, embarrassed. His face heats up. Hell, his skin heats up all the way down to his navel. “You let me run around _basically naked_! How do I mask this?”

Bucky laughs again, open and free, and Steve lets the sound soothe the part of him fretting over the fact that Bucky hasn’t let Steve see his aura yet, that Bucky apparently doesn’t trust him enough for that. “Same way you do anything else with Grace. Focus on what you want to make happen, and then make it happen. Oh, and make sure you’re using the right amount of Grace for it.”

It’s not much by way of guidelines, but Steve tries anyway. He closes his eyes, doing his best to focus, and tries to let his Grace do its thing, whatever that means. After a few moments, Steve opens his eyes to still-glowing skin. It _might_ be a few shades dimmer. He frowns.

“It’ll take practice, Stevie,” Bucky soothes gently. “Nobody figures it out the first time. Hell, the Council likes to keep fresh angels in training and under observation for years if not decades before they let you do anything more than make pretty fireworks with Grace. Trust me, you’re doing fine. For your first time, anyway.”

Steve tries to focus again, frowning at the gold-white glow on his skin. It flickers briefly—or maybe he just blinked?—but doesn’t go away. He lets out a theatrical grumble and flops on the ground. “I’m making it your job to train me,” he whines, face buried in his arms. You made me an angel, so teach me how to do it properly.”

Bucky laughs and plops down next to him. “Sure, whatever you say, pal,” he says, petting Steve’s head. “I’m warning you, though, I’ll probably make a terrible teacher. Haven’t been in proper training for _centuries._ Council doesn’t much…” He trails off, something unhappy lingering in his voice. Steve props himself up on his elbow to look at Bucky’s frown.

“What, Buck?” Steve asks after a moment. His brows pull in and his jaw tightens, mirroring the expression on Bucky’s face.

Bucky doesn’t reply for a while, just lifts a hand to stop Steve from speaking. His eyes are fixed on something on the far sky. Steve strains his eyes to see whatever’s got Bucky’s attention so thoroughly. There might be something faintly blue-grey in the distance, maybe, if he squints just right. It _might_ be getting closer, a little. He turns to Bucky, confused and concerned, but Bucky bolts before he can get a word out.

“ _Council_ ,” he hisses, snagging Steve’s hand in a tight grip and dragging him along as he begins running. “Fuck, I shoulda known they’d come. They must’ve felt the change, shit, they’re gonna be all over us.”

Steve stumbles to his feet, too stunned and bewildered for even a token protest against running. His heart pounds with something between fear and panic. There’s a shadow in Bucky’s eyes, spreading over his entire face, and it’s chasing out the warm gentle glow that enveloped Steve when he first woke. _Council._ Bucky’s mentioned it a few times, but… “What the hell is the Council? Should I be worried about them? Bucky?”

Bucky doesn’t stop; in fact, if anything, he speeds up, running fast enough that Steve has to flap his still-unfamiliar wings to keep up. Bucky doesn’t seem winded, though. Come to think of it, neither is Steve, despite the fact that he _should_ be in the midst of a terrible asthma attack already. Hell, his old body might have even have collapsed with a frozen heart. Steve isn’t sure if it’s thanks to the serum that killed him, or this new angel body, but he’s grateful nonetheless. Being unable to breathe was never fun, and now seems like a frankly terrible time to collapse, given the look on Bucky’s face. Steve’s just about to stop marvelling at his new and improved body and ask for a proper answer, when Bucky suddenly spreads his wings and takes them both into the sky. Steve gasps at the sudden jerk in his arms as they fly upwards, and tries to swing his wings to help.

“Stop moving,” Bucky grinds out without even looking at Steve. His face is crumpled in concentration. Steve freezes immediately; that tone isn’t one he’s ever heard in Bucky’s voice, commanding and even threatening, and he finds himself almost unable to resist. The blue tingling glow—Grace, Steve realizes with a start—spans out in sparking tendrils from Bucky’s fingertips to envelope them in a pulsing sphere of light. It dissipates to nothing a few moments later, leaving them no different as far as Steve can tell. He turns to Bucky, brows raised in a question he doesn’t dare voice yet.

“Mask,” Bucky explains tersely. “It’ll buy us some time. Won’t keep us hidden forever, though; I couldn’t hide from the Council on my best day, and I’m too tapped out to be any match for them now. Besides, you can’t escape them, not if you plan on staying in the bounds of Heaven.”

“From what little you’ve told me so far,” Steve says slowly, “this Council sounds like some violent gang out to get us for some reason. What the _hell_ is going on, Bucky?”

Bucky stalls a moment, pondering, before he sighs. “Here’s the short version,” he says finally, “since we don’t have time for a history lesson. The Council of Seraphim is kind of like your government on Earth. They decide where angels go, and what we do there. They pick out our protectorate forces. They decide when new angels are created, and they’re the only ones who can create them. They decide how we go to war, if and when that happens. They enforce our laws and discipline rogue angels. And yes, they’re out to get us, because I made you an angel and like I said, they’re the only ones who can create angels—or at least, they’re supposed to be. I kinda broke a couple dozen laws.”

A frown carves deepening grooves into Steve’s face as Bucky speaks. “That doesn’t… that sounds incredibly unfair, Buck. Dictatorial. They shouldn’t make all the decisions for you. You’re not a slave. It’s not ri—”

“ _No,_ Stevie,” Bucky cuts him off, harsh enough to leave Steve blinking in surprise. “I know that look in your eyes. No. The Council’s the entire reason Heaven’s functional at all, instead of in complete disarray, or worse yet, still in the midst of a war. And it’s not just anyone calling the shots; the Council’s made of the oldest, wisest, most experienced and most powerful out of all the angels. They’re better even than the average Seraph, and that’s saying something. You don’t call the orders from your army general unfair, do you? It’s the same here. Besides, if you so much as raised a hand towards the Council, you’d be Fallen before you could even blink.”

Steve isn’t convinced, far from it, but he doesn’t want to argue with Bucky, not now when Bucky has that awful look on his face. Maybe it’ll make sense when he understands Heaven better, he tells himself, and willfully ignores the vast part of him that wriggles in doubt. He can trust Bucky on this, at least until he knows more. “So what now?” he asks, instead of arguing further.

“Now we wait, and figure out how to convince the Council not to chuck us in Purgatory for a couple centuries,” Bucky responds wearily. Steve hates how defeated Bucky sounds already. He reaches out to… to do something _, anything_ , to lift the heaviness from Bucky’s bones.

Just then, a blinding arrow of Grace whistles in through the place where the mask vanished. A flickering crack appears, spreading like black streaks in marble. “Fuck,” Bucky swears. “Or we could be out of time.”

Steve settles for wrapping a hand around Bucky’s arm—the closest thing he can reach—and squeezing lightly. Bucky gives him a tired smile, and then takes a slow breath. He straightens his back, spreading his wings wide, and Steve mirrors his posture. Their eyes meet, for just a moment. “Here we go,” Bucky says.

The mask shatters into glittering shards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are love! Tell me what you loved, what you didn't love, what you hope/guess is coming--anything!


	8. HEAVEN: Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You get two chapters today!!! Also, chapter count is posted, mostly because only today did I realize that it _wasn't_ already posted. Oops.
> 
> In other news, I learned that when copying formatted text from word to ao3, it likes to add random spaces around italics text--so if you see weird spaces out of place, that's probably why. I'm trying to remember it and fix it before posting, but I'll probably miss a few.

It’s safe to say neither afterlife nor Heaven is anything like what Steve thought on Earth. Granted, back when he was still human—and there’s a phrase he’s yet to get used to—his imaginings of Heaven were vague at best, but it definitely included God. His ma, for sure, and finally getting to meet his dad. Maybe a choir of angels. Clouds and halos and wings and light and eternal happiness.

Instead, he’s got an all-powerful Council of angels, a terrifying array of strict hierarchical rules, and a Bucky he barely recognizes anymore. Oh, and this… Heavenly jail, whatever it’s called.

As it turns out, there’s little you can do when you find yourself besieged by the most powerful Seraphim in Heaven. Steve doesn’t need to close his eyes to recall the stricken look on Bucky’s face when the mask shattered, revealing a very pissed off Council surrounding them tightly. He remembers all too well how Bucky’s posture stiffened, how he pleaded with his eyes as the Council seized Steve, how terrifyingly quickly his bristling subsided with one growled “Soldier!” from one of the Seraphim. The images play over and over in Steve’s head, a distressing loop that only heightens the turmoil within him.

It doesn’t help that he aches with the knowledge of all the secrets Bucky kept from him for twenty years. Up until the very moment he died, Steve would’ve said there’s nothing about Bucky he doesn’t know, and nothing about him that Bucky doesn’t know. It hurts to find out only one part of that conviction is true, that there is an entire world and centuries of Bucky’s life and the core of his very _being_ that he never told Steve. He wishes Bucky were here, but the Council’s got him in interrogation or something of the like. He can’t just talk to Bucky, or ask Bucky why he had to keep all those secrets, or let himself be comforted by Bucky’s touch. The only thing he can do is brood, and he alternates between deep betrayal that throbs behind his ribs and anger that rushes in his blood and sadness that trembles in his bones.

He wants Bucky back. He wants the comfort of certainty back. It’s childish and useless, he knows, but he still desperately wishes for his life back, for the time when the world around him made sense and Bucky was his best friend and everything was simple. He reasons with himself the best he can. Bucky probably didn’t want to keep secrets from him, and having to do so probably hurt him as much as finding out has hurt Steve. Bucky wouldn’t do that to Steve, not on purpose. He must have had no other choice.

After all, Bucky’s clearly afraid of the Council’s anger, but also just as clearly thoroughly loyal to them. The Council seems to have all but complete command over Bucky, they clearly know it well and Steve’s sure they aren’t above exploiting it. It doesn’t seem too unreasonable that they forbade Bucky from telling Steve the truth, or maybe that there are some Heavenly laws that say you can’t reveal yourself to humans.

It makes sense. It just doesn’t soothe Steve as much as he wishes it did. His thoughts spiral again, tumbling down the same cycle he’s been through a dozen times already, and Steve starts pacing just to shake off the restlessness shuddering in his limbs.

He’s able to move freely within the boundaries of the cell. It’s not like he’s tied down or even handcuffed, after all. But he might as well be crippled and bound, despite the illusion of freedom. As soon as he tries to step past the glowing boundary of this cell without bars, three things happen. First, a bone-deep weariness overwhelms him; Steve thinks it’s some sort of spell that incapacitates what little Grace he has. He also becomes suddenly very certain that disaster awaits past those bounds, and he should stay just where he is. And then, of course, there’s the pain, fast and devastating, enforcing his obedience should he hesitate for more than a few seconds. Steve’s gone at least a dozen rounds with this invisible foe already, and he’s about to go another, when Bucky appears quite literally out of thin air.

“Bucky!” Steve cries. Bucky crumples, face ashen, and Steve rushes forward to catch him before he falls to his knees. Bucky turns his face into Steve’s shoulder, and Steve has to clench his jaw against the rise of panic in his throat.

“They want me _gone,_ ” Bucky whispers after what feels like far too long. “Fuck, they really _, really_ hate me. They… they…. _Fuck._ They told me I’m an Archangel now, that I’m never getting my Grace back. I can’t _do_ anything. They took my rank. Took my moniker. They wanted to take my fucking wings, I’m sure. And they’re gonna come after you, too. I’m pretty sure they’re trying to find a way to Fall you, make it like you never existed.”

“I’m not scared of them,” Steve says emphatically, although it’s a lie. He’s terrified of what they might do to him, and he’s terrified of dying now, but he can’t show that. “I don’t care what they do to me. I was supposed to die there, on that table, right? It doesn’t matter. I just don’t want them to hurt you.”

Bucky laughs, dry and humourless. “’S a little too late for that, Stevie. They’re not gonna let this go. I didn’t—I didn’t realize how upset this would make them. God, and I didn’t even _plan_ on making you an angel! I was just… I was just desperate, I couldn’t just let you die, and then something happened with my Grace and we were here! They’re making it out to be a betrayal, treason even, going against their orders and breaking the deepest rules. Fuck, I don’t know how to get us out of this.”

“They’re _afraid_ of you,” Steve says slowly, realization dawning hand-in-hand with the words falling from his lips. “They—Oh my God, they’re actually threatened by you. Don’t you see, Bucky? You told me, you told me yourself that they’re the only ones who’re supposed to be able to make angels! And now you’ve proven yourself strong enough to do something they never thought anyone else could do. And on top of that, if word gets out that you can raise angels, then—then they lose power. They’re not so special anymore. No wonder they’re out to get you, get us.” He only grows more certain as he speaks. It makes sense, and it’s really no different from all those back-alley bullies. Steve learned the hard way, after all, that there’s a reason your opponent only gets angrier the more you stand up: if _you_ can stand up, then there’s no reason anyone else can’t. They have no power anymore.

Bucky, though, Bucky’s just blinking at him, wide-eyed and blank. He opens his mouth halfway, as if to speak, but just freezes there. It’s almost like he’s in shock. Steve desperately wants to reach out and hold him until he looks less like a ghost, and after a long moment of hesitation, he sets a hand on Bucky’s shoulder to do just that. The touch seems to snap Bucky out of his reverie, though, and some light returns to his eyes. “You think they’re scared of me, huh?” he says, and Steve kindly doesn’t point out the shakiness in his voice. “The Council, scared of _me_. What the hell.”

“Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? That’s why they’re so mad, so keen on taking you down. I’m just—well, I’m just collateral damage, probably. The proof of your powers. Evidence to be destroyed.”

“Not a chance,” Bucky growls, suddenly heated. He finally looks fully like himself again. “I won’t let them lay a hand on you.”

Steve smiles, and if the edges of it feel sharper than usual, he’s not complaining. “ _There’s_ the Bucky I know. C’mon, let’s show them what we’re made of. Make them see you’re not the toy soldier they think you are.”

Bucky flinches sharply. “I’m not… I’m not the Soldier anymore,” he says, all but whispering.

“What do you mean?”

“That was my moniker. It’s like this... nickname, or codename maybe, that they give some angels. Now that I think of it, I’m not really sure how they choose who gets what moniker, but I think it’s for extraordinary service and ability, or something like that.”

“So, being their obedient little toy soldier.”

“Ha! Yeah, I guess so. And they called me _the_ Soldier, too. They really did think me their puppet, didn’t they?”

“Looks like it, jerk. So what’re you gonna do now?”

“What’re _we_ gonna do,” Bucky corrects gently, “And honestly, I have no idea. The Council’s scared of us, and that’s almost worse than just being furious with us. Now… well, now we know they’re gonna fight to take us down. There’s no chance of placating them, or striking a deal, or whatever.” The fire goes out of Bucky’s eyes as he speaks, shoulders sagging. Even Steve’s gotta admit it’s a bleak picture, for all his righteous certainty mere minutes ago.

“Is there—I might be completely off, I have no idea how this Heaven thing works yet, but is there someone who might be able to stand against the Council?” he asks hesitantly.

“Yes,” says a voice behind them, “and he’s standing right here.”

Steve startles badly, and he just barely stops himself from jumping in surprise. Bucky, on the other hand, stiffens like a statue and turns around slowly. Steve scrambles to follow.

An angel with blue-black wings stands behind them, imposing and magnificent. One of his eyes is completely white, standing out starkly against dark skin. Even if the guy hadn’t just broken into their secure Heavenly cell, Steve would’ve known at a glance that this isn’t just an ordinary angel.

“You’re the Fury,” Bucky says, and it doesn’t sound like a question. Steve can pick out wariness, and also a hint of hope in Bucky’s voice, but no uncertainty. The angel’s mouth twitches a little, and he nods.

“I take it you know who I am, Soldier,” the angel says, a hint of what might be dry amusement in his voice.

“Of course I do, and I’m not the Soldier anymore,” Bucky shoots back, hostility flaring.

“Monikers are earned, _Soldier_. They may not be easily granted, but believe me, they are even harder to take away, no matter what the Council may decide. Legends, after all, do not die so easy.”

“What, you think I’m a legend now?”

“I don’t make a habit of visiting just anyone. Perhaps you are not a legend yet, but you certainly are well on your way to becoming one. You and your little friend, that is.”

Steve bristles; he fucking hates being judged by his appearance, and even more hates being called little. “Listen, I may not know who you are, but that doesn’t give you the right to talk about at me like that.”

Bucky lays a soothing hand on his shoulder. “Shh, Stevie,” he says, turning his head and pitching his voice soft and low so only they can hear it. At least, Steve _thinks_ the other angel can’t hear them. “It’s all right. He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s going to help us, I’m sure.” He looks up and straightens his shoulders, facing the Fury directly again. “You _are_ here to help, aren’t you?”

“That would depend on your definition of help,” the Fury replies evenly. “I am here to make you an offer. I do hate seeing capable angels go to waste. Whether you take the offer, well, that’s entirely in your hands.”

“Tell us what the offer is,” Steve bites out. The angel might be here to help, sure, and they might even be desperate enough to take it, whatever it is. But the way the Fury speaks is setting off all sorts of alarms in Steve’s head, making him hostile and wary. He doesn’t like it one bit.

“You join us,” the Fury says simply. His face doesn’t change as far as Steve can tell, but he manages to convey a hint of smugness nonetheless, like he knew Steve would get angry and finds satisfaction in being proven right. Steve fucking hates it.

“That’s not an answer. What’s your terms? The catch?”

“I didn’t think you were in a position to be picky, but since you ask, I might as well tell you. I’ll make sure the Council doesn’t Fall you, or throw you in Purgatory, or whatever other retribution I’m sure they’re considering. In exchange, you work for me. Take my orders, join my protectorate, fight as I say. I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about SHIELD, Buchanan.”

Steve almost doesn’t realize the Fury’s addressing Bucky. Hearing him called Buchanan is so odd, although now that he thinks about it, it makes perfect sense. After all, Bucky did introduce himself as Buchanan all those years ago when they first met.

“Yes, I’ve heard plenty about the secrets you keep. How no one really knows what SHIELD is ever up to. How you thrive in the shadows, in murky corners. How no one knows who your agents are, where they come from, but everyone knows it’s nothing good. And, yes, how you might be the reason why we haven’t had a war with Hell in centuries.”

“Well, I can’t take all the credit,” the Fury says. He doesn’t seem at all fazed by the barbed insults Bucky’s throwing. “And a disgraced Cherub accused of betraying Heaven seems a rather perfect fit for what you’ve just described.”

Bucky winces. Steve hates the guy for hitting Bucky where it hurts most with pinprick precision. He aches with the desire to comfort Bucky, but he can’t let the Fury see that. He’ll just have to let his fingers tremble instead, powerless and longing.

“What about Steve?” Bucky asks suddenly. “What do you want from him?”

“Why, I want both of you. I’m not in the habit of wasting resources, like I said.”

“No! This isn’t his mess, it’s mine. You can take me, whatever you want, but leave him the fuck alone.”

It’s Bucky’s turn to face Steve’s outrage now. “I get that I don’t know as much about this as you do Bucky, but I’m not a helpless kid. I can make my own decisions. This is my mess as much as yours; I’m the illegally-created angel, after all. The Council’s gonna come after me too, you said so yourself. Hell, they’re gonna be even more set on getting me once they lose you. I’m not gonna roll over and let them do whatever the fuck they want to me. If this is what it takes to fight them, then I’ll do it.”

Bucky looks stricken, so Steve turns his back on the Fury to place himself firmly in front of Bucky. “Listen. I’m not scared of this, Bucky,” he says quietly, reluctant to let the Fury listen; this is between him and Bucky, and no one else. “It’s not good, sure, and I’m not pleased with it either. But it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere without you.” He wraps his arms around Bucky, spreading his wings wide for some pretence of privacy. “I’m with you till the end of the line. Whatever it takes, wherever you go.”

Bucky frowns for a while longer, but he returns Steve’s hug eventually. He buries his head in the crook of Steve’s neck, just for a moment, and the intensely private contact settles somewhere next to his racing heart. Bucky takes one deep breath there, and then straightens himself. A hand reaches out to grab Steve’s hand tightly. It sends warmth spreading up Steve’s spine, even as he turns with stony face to stare down the Fury.

“We’ll take it,” they say, together.


	9. HEAVEN: Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go check out chapter 6; it now includes an absolutely stunning piece by the genuinely incredible maichan808. I literally have no words for how amazing it is.

The well-oiled machine that is SHIELD works terrifyingly efficiently.

SHIELD puts Steve in lessons like some kid, gets him caught up on celestial history and the four tiers of angels and the Council and SHIELD’s role and wars with Hell and Heavenly rules and a million other little things he apparently needs to understand. They make him learn and study and remember mundane facts like the roles of each member of the Council (there’s twelve of them, codenamed after the twelve disciples, plus a few advisors that come and go), or the strategies and results of all the battles against Hell (the last one was six centuries ago, and Heaven won but with heavy casualties), or the thirteen major commandments dictating the unique responsibilities of a Cherub, down to the exact words (it begins with the words “Albeit greater in Grace and power than the lower echelons, Cherubim are nevertheless obliged to the selfsame limits and restraints” and drones on _forever_ ).

Only when he can recite just about everything with perfect accuracy—and even with his angelically enhanced mind, it takes longer than Steve’s patience can bear—is Steve allowed to move on. SHIELD assigns him a trainer who teaches him to use his wings properly, conceal his aura, control his Grace to bend the metaphysics of the world to his will. SHIELD trains him into a soldier, more than the army ever did on Earth. Or maybe it just feels that way because Steve can actually keep up now, and no one’s looking at him like they’re desperately trying to imagine how an experimental drug might make him a useful weapon instead of an asthmatic stick of a man.

The Council is spitting mad, of course, unfathomably furious at losing their prey, but Steve hears of it like passing rumours, like fevered dreams: distant and surreal and irrelevant. The world within the gates of SHIELD seems almost a wholly different entity from the rest of Heaven. Their training grounds do not tremble under the Council’s gaze, and their offices do not bend to the Council’s will. No matter how powerful the Council may be outside those gates, it does not and cannot affect him, not while he’s with SHIELD. For as much as Steve hated the Fury upon their first encounter, he’s grateful to the angel for that.

It helps that the Fury turns out to be one of the most powerful Seraphim alive, that he’s more than qualified to join the Council but chooses instead to use his powers elsewhere. Steve still isn’t much of a fan of the guy, still finds himself uncomfortable in his presence, but there’s also a grudging respect somewhere in the corner of his mind.

His greater concern is Bucky. Steve’s only seen Bucky a handful of times since SHIELD descended upon them like a miraculous saviour, each time a harried and painfully public encounter hardly long enough for a _how are you_. Steve aches with the need to really see Bucky, to speak with him properly. Even the grapevines at SHIELD are weirdly silent—or perhaps Steve’s just not privy to all the gossip yet—and he’d honestly fear Bucky dead if he didn’t occasionally see Bucky far away across the training grounds. He’s adrift, lost in a world he doesn’t understand and torn from the anchor he hasn’t been without for twenty years. It’s terrifying and overwhelming and he _hates_ it.

Which is what brings him here, a few wingspans away from the Fury’s office. He takes a deep breath to calm unsettled nerves, steeling himself to confront the Fury. There’s a small voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like Bucky’s, warning him not to do anything spectacularly stupid and get himself in trouble. Steve’s never been in the habit of paying that part of his head much mind, though, and he’s not about to start now. He wants to see Bucky, really _see_ him and talk to him and hold him, and he’ll fight for the right to do so if he must. SHIELD might be giving him protection and training and a metaphorical roof over his head, but he’s no more willing to let them shackle him than he was willing to let the Council. Yes, he begrudgingly agreed to be their foot soldier, their cannon fodder, but he won’t be their mindless little servant.

When he marches in, though, shoulders squared and ready for a fight, he finds the Fury already in conversation with Bucky. Bucky, who looks so unchanged yet so different, all hard edges and rigid posture. The Fury looks up at the sound of Steve’s heavy footsteps, a bored expression on his face as if he were expecting Steve to storm in all along.

“Ah, Rogers, how kind of you to join us,” he says, without bothering to feign a bit of surprise. “I intended to summon you shortly. I believe it is time for you to enter Buchanan’s unit and learn to work with him and under him, along with his angels.”

“I… what?” Steve says eloquently, all his prepared tirades derailed by a few unexpected sentences. The Fury always seems to know how to unbalance him on the spot, and in his more uncharitable moments, Steve has even believed him to take a twisted sort of pleasure from it. The Fury does seem the type to find vindictive) joy in such a power trip, withholding information and concealing all his cards until he could use them to his own advantage.

“I’m sorry, was I unclear? You will be joining Buchanan and his unit, Rogers. This is, after all, what I recruited you for. Or did you think you’d be in training forever?”

“Yes, of course,” Steve all but snaps. “How foolish of me not to realize that I’m meant to join a team I didn’t even know existed.”

“Foolish indeed,” the Fury replies, unperturbed by Steve’s boiling anger. “Where else did you think I would place you? I would advise you to watch your words, Rogers. I am under no obligation to inform you about anything SHIELD does, unless it directly relates to your orders. Need to know basis, you may have heard of it. You are not need-to-know on anything Buchanan does, no matter what you might believe yourself entitled to.”

Jaw clenching tight, Steve valiantly resists the all-consuming urge to punch the condescension right off the Fury’s face. He settles instead for stepping right into the Fury’s space, even standing on his toes to place himself at equal heights with the Seraph. “Listen,” he grinds out. “You may have saved my ass from the Council and whatever they had planned, but that does _not_ make me your slave. I refuse to let you walk all over me like some dog. If you want me as your soldier, you better start fucking telling me what the hell is going on. Otherwise, I’ll be about as much use as a sniper rifle without a scope.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” the Fury drawls, his voice dripping with disinterest bordering on utter boredom. “In the meantime, you _will_ join Buchanan. Or perhaps, if you are so dissatisfied with my treatment of you, you are welcome to leave SHIELD. You are, as you’ve said, not a slave. I’m sure the Council would be ecstatic.”

“Perhaps I will,” Steve shoots back. “At least then I would know what I’m dealing with.” He spins on his heel and storms out, fingers trembling with unspent rage.

“Permission to depart, sir,” he hears Bucky say behind him. The damned deference in his voice only exacerbates the roar of blood in Steve’s ears.

“Granted,” the Fury says, as if he is allowing Bucky some grand generosity. “I would suggest you learn to rein in your little friend, Buchanan, before—”

Steve doesn’t hear the rest of that sentence. He breaks into a sprint instead, channelling his rage into the pounding impact of his feet on the ground. It may be faster to fly, but he still feels better running with his feet on the ground; besides, the brilliant novelty of being able to run without fear of an overstrained heart or a closed-up lung has yet to wear off. So he runs, and runs, and runs and runs and runs, blind and deaf to everything in the world save the stretch and pull of his muscles, the rise and fall of his breath.

He isn’t sure how long he’s been running by the time he finally notices Bucky keeping up a few paces behind him. All he knows is that he’s calm enough now not to be offended or angered by Bucky’s presence. In fact, he’s tired enough both physically and emotionally to want nothing more than to hug Bucky and be held.

He slows down. Stops. Hesitates.

Almost as if he’s read Steve’s mind, Bucky slows to a stop right next to Steve. “Hey,” he says, a cautious smile on his lips. “You ready to talk some sense?”

“I _am_ talking sense,” Steve grumbles, but there’s no heat behind it. He’s suddenly too drained to even summon up the energy to be angry. Bucky seems to sense this somehow, and catches Steve as he all but collapses.

“Hey, hey, Stevie, it’s all right,” Bucky soothes. His arms are a solid circle of warmth and support around Steve. “It’s all right. I’ve got you. We’re gonna figure it out.”

“It’s not all right,” Steve protests, turning his face into the comforting wall of Bucky’s chest. “The Council wants us dead. The Fury wants us as his obedient little toy soldiers, and he’s got us both by the throat. And I haven’t seen you properly in _weeks._ Nothing makes any fucking sense, Bucky, and we’re stuck.”

“Yeah, okay, so things are pretty bad,” Bucky concedes easily. “Yes, the most powerful authority in Heaven wants us dead, and yes, the only one strong enough to help us is going to hold it over our heads like a guillotine and try to control everything we do. But it’s not hopeless, Steve, c’mon.”

Steve looks up wearily without bothering to lift his head from Bucky’s chest. “Yeah? You got any brilliant ideas? ‘Cause it looks pretty hopeless to me.”

“I thought brilliant ideas were your speciality,” Bucky teases lightly. “Think about it. You’re supposed to be dead right now, Stevie. There’s miracle number one. We’re both supposed to be rotting in Purgatory, or even in Hell, or suffering whatever horrid punishment the Council comes up with. We’re not, which is miracle number two. Look at us, Steve. You’re a damn angel, which is supposed to be impossible. We’re here, alive, which is supposed to be impossible when the Council wants us gone. And I know you don’t much like SHIELD, but it’s a highly regarded position, working for them. Most importantly, Steve, we’re _both_ here. Together. Yes, things are bad, but we’ve already got a couple of miracles under our belts. What’s a few more? We’ll figure it out. I know we can.”

Bucky sounds so certain, so confident, and something in Steve’s chest loosens, leaving room for a fragile but burgeoning warmth. “You really sure, Bucky?” he asks, tentative but edging on hopeful. “You really think we’re gonna be okay? We can make it out of this mess?”

“Yeah, Steve, I’m sure. So _please_ try not to antagonize the Fury? I know you don’t trust him, and I know he keeps a lot of secrets, but he does run a super secret spy-soldier agency in Heaven. And he’s being nice, letting us work together. You know he doesn’t have to. Hell, he has the power to forbid us from ever laying eyes on each other again, and he’d be well within his rights to do so. ‘Sides, my team’s good people. You’ll like them, I promise.”

Steve heaves a sigh and nods. “I don’t mind joining your team, Buck. I’m happy to. It’s just… It feels like I have no choice, no freedom, and I hate that. I hate being so trapped, and I don’t know what to do.”

Steve feels rather than sees Bucky’s grimace as his arms wrap a little tighter around Steve. “I’m sorry, Stevie. I got no way to fix this, not right now. I can promise we will, though. We _will_ fix it. And I know… I know it’s been hard on you, coming here. To Heaven, I mean. Dying. Being an angel. I shoulda been there, shoulda helped you more, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“S’okay,” Steve mumbles, hiding his face in Bucky’s chest once more. “You were busy.” Bucky’s mostly right; it _has_ been exhausting and confusing and overwhelming, but Steve doesn’t want Bucky to feel guilty over it. “’Sides, you’re here now.”

“To the end of the line,” Bucky says, chuckling quietly. It makes Bucky’s chest rumble nicely, and Steve can feel the vibrations echoing all the way in his bones. He makes an indistinct noise of contentment in his throat. It’s incredibly comforting to have Bucky this close, to lean into Bucky’s embrace blindly, especially after being away for so long.

“Did you just—did you just _purr_?” Bucky asks, laughing.

“Did not!” Steve shoots back, but there’s no fire in it.

“You just purred, I heard it! I didn’t know I turned you part cat when I made you an angel.”

“Shuddup, Buck. You’re a jerk.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a punk, Steve. A _purring punk_.”

Steve slaps half-heartedly at Bucky’s arms. Bucky lets him, and doesn’t strike back. Instead, Steve feels the axis of the world shift as Bucky takes them both tumbling to the ground. They roll onto soft grass that Steve’s pretty sure didn’t exist a few seconds ago. “Did you just… _make_ grass?”

“Yep. Well, not exactly make, but close enough. Grace, remember? I could make us a forest if you want.” Bucky proceeds to do just that. Trees sprout around them, shielding them in dense canopy. Steve stares a moment, captivated, and then he closes his eyes to concentrate.

“I wanna try something,” he says, because he can hear Bucky getting ready to ask. He envisions the kind of forest he saw in the pictures: a little stream, some flowers, and sunlight streaming in between the leaves like shimmering ribbons. His fingers tingle, warm and ticklish, and Steve resists the urge to open his eyes until the sensation subsides.

“Whoa, Stevie,” Bucky whispers, impressed, and Steve finally opens his eyes. The forest he imagined greets him, all sparkling and solid and real. “You trained real good, didn’t you?”

“It’s sorta like drawing,” Steve explains, even though he’s also a little awed that it really worked. “You know, in that I gotta really know what I wanna see. Feel it in my fingers. It got a lot easier once I figured that part out.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure you’re just a genius,” Bucky teases. “Never seen anyone pick it up so fast. And mind you, I’ve seen my fair share of trainings.”

“’S not nice to tease,” Steve says, but his cheeks heat up. His chest feels warm and tight, but in a good way, somehow. “Hey,” he says abruptly, feeling suddenly bold. “Can I ask you something?”

Bucky looks a little confused, but he nods. “Why’re you asking if you can? ‘M not your commander. Well, not yet, anyway.”

“Can I see your aura?” Steve says all in one breath, before he has the chance to falter. “I know, I know you said it’s private, and you don’t have to, I swear, I won’t be mad or anything. It’s just, well, you’ve seen mine and I’ve… I’ve never seen yours or anyone else’s and I thought, I thought maybe—” He trails off, uncertainty rising like a tidal wave ready to crash upon his sudden spark of boldness. What if Bucky doesn’t want Steve to see? What if he’s imposing on Bucky, or making him uncomfortable? What if—

“Yeah, Stevie, sure you can.” Bucky’s voice his hushed, charged with an emotion Steve can’t quite pin down. Before Steve can get caught up in wondering, the air around Bucky shimmers blue and then dissolves into a pale, sparkling silver. It’s enthralling, entrancing, enchanting. Steve finds himself unconsciously reaching out, even though he knows full well that auras aren’t something he can feel with his fingers. Bucky grins, a light in his eyes, but doesn’t say anything.

“Wow,” Steve breathes out, after what might have been long minutes or mere seconds. “Bucky, you’re… it’s… it’s _gorgeous._ ”

Bucky flushes pink. “You’re a sap, Stevie,” he says, but his tone is too pleased for his words to be insulting at all.

“Why is… is there a reason yours is silver and mine’s gold? Does it mean something?”

“Everyone’s aura is a little different. As for the colours, I’m not sure, really. Some angels say every colour has a meaning, but I don’t know if I believe that. Rumour is auras can change colour if something really important happens and changes you. Like, say, you might develop red splotches if you have a lot of blood on your hands. Or, if you become soulmates with someone, you might find your aura colour mixing with theirs. I’ve never seen it happen myself, but then it’s not like anyone goes around advertising their auras. So it could very well be true, just not within my direct knowledge.“

Steve can’t stop staring at the shifting undertones in Bucky’s aura, even as he listens to Bucky’s explanation. He wants to swim in the bright, pure silver light, to bathe in it, drown in it, wrap himself up in it. He’s… he’s enamoured with Bucky’s aura.

The realization hits him like a lightning strike in his bones, like a bell reverberating in the chambers of his heart. He’s _enamoured_ with Bucky’s aura. By Bucky. Steve is enamoured with Bucky, with the boy who became his unwavering best friend, with the Cherub who turned him an angel against orders, with the Archangel who will soon be his commander. Steve Rogers is enamoured with, is in love with, Bucky Barnes.

It’s like the crack of thunder, like clouds breaking to blinding sunlight, like the eye of a hurricane. Steve aches with it. He warms to the core with it. He shivers all over with it.

He is in love with Bucky.

A lot of things make sense now, really. How beautiful he found Bucky all those years. How happy he was to see Bucky when he first woke in Heaven. How much he ached with missing Bucky these last few weeks.

He is in love with Bucky.

“Steve? What is it? Are you okay?” Bucky’s voice pierces through the haze of heady revelation. Steve looks at Bucky, and he feels like he might burst.

He is in love with Bucky.

He knows Bucky doesn’t love him. Couldn’t. Not like that. But that doesn’t hurt as much as he might have expected it to. Bucky is here against all odds, after all, and holding him. Bucky wants to be here. Bucky promised forever. That’s enough. That’s more than enough. To ask more would be greedy.

“Nothing, Bucky, it’s nothing,” he says quietly. “It’s just beautiful. And I’m honoured, really. Thank you.”

“You’re even more of a damn sap than I thought,” Bucky says, laughing. His eyes are still watching Steve though, intently and intensely. A part of Steve wants to glory in that gaze, but he’s afraid Bucky will find something in his face to give him away. He’s not ready for Bucky to know, not yet. Maybe never.

“Stop being a jerk. Come on, the Fury’s gonna come after us if we disappear for too long, and I’m sure that won’t be fun. ‘Sides, don’t you have a team to introduce me to?”

Bucky shakes his head, still laughing, as he leaps fluidly to his feet. “Are you the same Steve Rogers I saw earlier today? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure that guy almost punched the Fury in the face for assigning him to my team.”

Steve just shoots Bucky a half-hearted glare and gets to his feet more slowly. He watches Bucky walk ahead—the broad strength of his shoulders, the swagger in his steps, the full spread of his wings—and admires him and loves him.

He is in love with Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaaaand we end today's update on one of my favourite scenes in the whole fic.  
> I live for comments/feedback/concrit/etc like all authors! Please tell me what you liked or didn't like, what you want to see coming, all that jazz.  
> Up next: Steve gets to meet the Howling Commandos!


	10. HEAVEN: Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I didn't post last night; I got off work late and honestly went straight to bed. On the bright side, two chapters today to make up for it!  
> This chapter is also known as the one where I regretted deciding to include so many characters.

Bucky leads Steve to an area of SHIELD he’s never been in, towards what Steve assumes is the rough equivalent of army barracks. Bucky stops at the entrance, waiting for Steve to catch up the last few steps. “You ready?” he asks softly, as if he’s worried Steve might be nervous. To be perfectly honest, Steve  _ would _ be, if he wasn’t still so caught up in the warm surge of his newfound love for Bucky. As it is, he just gives Bucky his best confident smile and grabs his hand for a quick squeeze.

“Listen up, all of you!” Bucky shouts as they enter. The noise in the barracks far exceeds what Steve expected, not quite overwhelming but getting there. As the quiet sets in, however, Steve realizes there’s only four people here. “If you paid any attention at all to your briefings,” Bucky continues once it’s quiet enough that he doesn’t have to yell, “you’d know there’s one last person joining us. This is Steve Rogers, and he’s going to complete us as a nice seven. If I’m lucky, which I doubt, he’ll even help keep you lot in line. Steve, these are the Howling Commandos. Used to just be the Commandos, but these assholes are so damn loud someone nicknamed us Howling, and well, it stuck.”

Four pairs of eyes turn on him, searching but not unkind. One of them, the one furthest from Steve, raises a hand in greeting. “Hey Rogers, nice to have you. Now can I get back to my cards?”

“Not a chance, Falsworth,” Bucky says, faux-stern. “You’re all going to be nice and introduce yourselves like civilized creatures.”

The angel sighs in exaggerated exasperation. “Dum Dum!” he calls, looking somewhere beyond Steve’s line of sight. “Come meet the new kid! Buchanan’s making us all introduce ourselves like  _ civilized creatures. _ ”

“My name is  _ Dugan _ ,” someone replies, and moments later another angel appears from out of sight.

“Whatever you say, Bowler,” Falsworth shoots back as he gives the new angel a playful smack on the arm.

“You’re one to talk, Red Beret,” Dugan answers without missing a beat.

Bucky sighs and shakes his head, but Steve can read the fondness in it. “They’re completely incorrigible. Uncivilized swine, I swear. Anyway, so that’s as much of an introduction as you’re going to get from Falsworth and Dugan and their five hundred nicknames. Uh, let’s see…”

The angel closest to Steve stands up to shake his hand. “Call me Jones,” he says.

“Yeah, whatever you do, don’t call him Gabriel,” adds Bucky, a mischievous grin dancing on his lips.

“Shut your mouth right now, Buchanan. That’s slander.”

“Stop trying to deceive Steve into thinking you’re the paragon of civility, and I’ll consider it.”

“I’m just trying to be nice to the new guy, just like you wanted. At least  _ I _ know how not to scare him off on the first day.”

“No, you’ll just wait until he’s five weeks in.”

Steve stares at the two of them in amusement. He’s a little lost in the rapid fire of their banter, sure, but he can at least admire the easy familiarity of it. They’re clearly very comfortable with each other, and Steve’s grateful that Bucky has good company around him. Bucky’s still grinning wide as he waves Jones off and turns back to Steve, and Steve’s sure he’s got a smitten smile to match.

“So yeah, that’s Jones,” Bucky says. “He’s probably the sanest of them all, which is frankly terrifying. And this”—Bucky takes him over to an angel a few feet away—“This is Dernier.”

Dernier raises a hand in a gesture somewhere between a wave and a salute, and says something Steve doesn’t quite catch but assumes is a greeting of some sort. He turns questioning eyes on Bucky.

“Don’t let him fool you,” Bucky says. “He likes to pretend to be all fancy and civilized. Speaks almost exclusively in French, even though he can speak English perfectly fine. Oh, and he  _ loves _ blowing stuff up entirely too much, and he’s very good at it. Thankfully, he also enjoys being on our side, and takes extreme pleasure in blowing up our enemies whenever the opportunity presents itself.”

Steve blinks, a little taken aback. It’s not as if what Bucky’s saying is completely unexpected—he knew these were soldiers, after all—but it’s still disconcerting to hear it that way. Dernier just grins at him, and Steve wonders he’s imagining the razor-sharp edges of it.

“And that over there is Morita, from Fresno.”

Morita, the only angel Steve has yet to be introduced to, pauses halfway through a smile to glare at Bucky instead. “Are you  _ ever _ going to let that rest?”

“Nope,” Buck says, popping the “p” with unrestrained glee.

“Literally no one would remember it if you didn’t keep bringing it up.”

“Why d’you think I keep bringing it up? See, when Morita here first met the Fury, he—”

“C’mon, not to the new guy! I  _ just _ met him.”

Bucky grins, but lets it drop. “Someday, Steve. Someday you’ll hear the legend.”

Morita stalks off with an expression of pretended offense, leaving the two of them alone. By now, they’re standing in the middle of the barracks. Steve looks around, a little dazed. “That was… a lot,” he manages finally.

Bucky winces. “Sorry. I shoulda warned you they’re an unruly lot. If it’s any consolation, I did tell them to be on best behaviour.”

Steve chuckles, perhaps a touch shaky, and blindly reaches out hand to lay a reassuring pat on Bucky’s arms. “Nah, ‘s not a bad thing. I promise. Just, just a lot. They clearly love you.”

“Hear that, sarge? Even the new guy can see how much we  _ loooooove _ you.” Steve doesn’t look around for the source of the voice, but he’s pretty sure it’s Dugan. He thinks. Maybe.

Bucky doesn’t bother looking away from Steve as he makes a rather rude gesture towards the voice-that-might-be-Dugan. “Love is an overstatement. Closer to “like” or “grudgingly admire my greatness from the grumpy shadows.”

The Howling Commandos burst into roaring laughter. “What greatness?” someone demands, followed by a yelled, “You mean ‘tolerate your insanity’ right?”

Steve can’t help but join in the laughter, although he calms faster than the rest of them. He still has a question or two or a million, after all.

“How’d you get this team?” he asks Bucky. “And did Dugan call you sarge?”

“What, the Great Buchanan didn’t tell you?” Falsworth says skeptically. Steve turns to him, forehead creased in baffled furrows.

“Sarge here is a  _ war hero _ ,” Jones chimes in. “He saved all our asses in the last war with Hell.”

“We would most certainly all be specks of dust and leftover Grace without him,” Dernier confirms. He doesn’t seem the least bit fazed by the fact.

“Council decided that was heroic enough for a moniker,” adds Morita. “And then, in true Council form, they made the outrageously stupid decision that ‘Soldier’ was the  _ perfect _ choice for Buchanan.”

“Obviously, our great leader and Saviour deserves better.  _ We’re _ the soldiers, all of us. Hell, all the angels are basically soldiers.”

“Honestly, what kind of a moniker is ‘Soldier’? So we decided to promote him  _ properly _ ourselves.”

“Couldn’t make him a General or something, that would inflate his ego far too much. So we settled on making him a sergeant.”

“Sergeant Buchanan’s a hell of a mouthful, though. We needed something shorter to yell at him when he does something stupid.”

“Hence, Sarge,” Dugan finishes with a flourish of his hands.

Steve’s heart surges with a mix of emotions too complex and profound to name. “You… you saved all these angels? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Thought you didn’t much like braggers, Stevie,” Bucky mutters. His entire face is tinged pink with embarrassment, but there’s an undercurrent of pleased pride in it. “Besides, it’s really nothing. What was I supposed to do? Leave ‘em all to Fall?”

Steve just shakes his head, overwhelmed with fondness and love and pride for Bucky. Jones pats them both on the shoulder, adding in an exaggerated glare for Bucky. “Steve, I really hope you can talk some sense into this thick-skulled stubborn ass.”

“Been trying for  _ years. _ I think he’s a hopeless case.”

The Commandos dissolve into laughter again, and Steve feels a rush of pleasure that he’s at the root of it. That’s how he meets the Howling Commandos, and as he learns later, it’s really perfectly in character: loud and brash and disorderly and hilarious, all over a foundation of devoted loyalty to one another. Steve finds himself unquestioningly and inextricably accepted into the fabric of their camaraderie in a matter of days. Granted, training together and eating together, even living together, probably helps.

Training mostly consists of learning one another’s fighting styles, communication styles, movement styles. Steve soon learns to tell the Commandos apart just by the flourish of their Grace, by the sound of their footsteps, by a glimpse of their wings. In a few short weeks, they practically think and breathe as one.

The Fury sends them out on the occasional mission, mostly of the milk run variety: patrols and guards and practice exercises. A few retrieval missions here and there, fairly low risk. The most excitement they have is when they run a live battle drill against another SHIELD team. Steve’s not sure if there’s really nothing else to be done, or if they Fury’s keeping them close for some reason he’s refusing to share. A test, maybe. Neither Bucky nor the rest of the Commandos seem concerned, though, so Steve quiets the unease twisting somewhere deep in his stomach as best he can. They’ve done this for  _ centuries _ longer that Steve; if anything’s wrong, surely they’d know before Steve. He’s just biased by his mistrust of Fury. It’s probably just paranoia.

Steve’s perhaps six weeks into his new life with Bucky and the Howling Commandos when the Fury calls all of them in for a direct briefing. Meeting the Fury in person at all is a rare enough occasion to put them on guard; add to that being called in for an official briefing as a complete team, and it’s safe to say they’re all bristling with frayed nerves and unspoken fears even before they enter the Fury’s office together.

It’s really too bad leaving fears unspoken doesn’t stop them from coming true.

The Fury doesn’t bother with pleasantries, not even a hello. “SHIELD obtained intelligence two months ago indicating that a splinter organization within Hell may be preparing to wage war once again,” he begins immediately. “Yesterday, my agents uncovered a plot to launch a multi-pronged attack upon Heaven from at least three sides, effectively destroying us all. The Howling Commandos are officially on active duty as part of our defence and counterattack initiative.”

Steve’s heart sinks down to somewhere far below the soles of his feet. It’s like the air petrifies around him, dropping a few degrees in temperature in the process. He feels like every particle of his body, down to the fluttering edges of his wings, has frozen to stone. Steve doesn’t need to look around to picture the grim, determined expressions on his teammates’ faces.

The Fury waves a hand, materializing a stack of files he hands off to Bucky. “What I am about to tell you is highly classified information. Its security is worth significantly more than any of your lives, and rest assured that I will not hesitate to Fall you should I sense even an inkling of a leak. Keep your mouths shut, soldiers, and your eyes open.

“Though Heaven at large remains thoroughly unaware, there is in fact an organization within Hell roughly equivalent to SHIELD, called HYDRA. The Red Skull is their leader.” A shimmering image of a demon appears next to the Fury, startlingly reminiscent of classical depictions of Satan with his red skeletal face. “During the last war with Hell, SHIELD significantly crippled HYDRA’s forces and nearly destroyed the Red Skull, leaving HYDRA in complete disarray. It appears the Red Skull has finally recovered, and they are finally coalescing around him once more, aided by his closest lackey, Zola.” A second shimmering face appears, this once far less stereotypically demonic. Steve stares at them, trying to commit those faces to the depths of his memory.

“Your concern, however, is not the two of them directly,” the Fury continues. “Your task is to do what this unit was created for: act as a commando unit, and execute missions impossible for regular units to handle. You will receive what information we have on your first target through Buchanan. You march in twelve hours. Dismissed.”

The Fury turns his back on them immediately, brooking no question nor argument. As they file out of the Fury’s office, Steve fights to corral his wits about himself. This is what he signed up for, what he’s been dying to do since the war first broke out back on Earth. The battlefield and players might have changed, but the purpose of it hasn’t. 

They are at war, now.

When they get back to the barracks, Steve realizes the rest of the Howlies are grinning, perhaps a little manic. His eyebrows climb up his forehead. 

Bucky’s the first to break the silence. “Well,” he says, “that surprises exactly no one.”

“About damn time,” Dugan adds.

“I was beginning to think they finally gave up!” Jones says, laughing a little. 

“Sounds fun, doesn’t it? Beating up some more HYDRA demons.” Falsworth mimes capturing a demon with his bare hands, grinning wide. 

“No more milk runs, thank God,” Morita says fervently. 

Dernier adds something in what Steve assumes is French, and Jones cackles gleefully. 

The enthusiasm soothes a part of Steve still reeling from the Fury’s debrief. As the room breaks apart into loud bickering, Bucky turns to Steve, a touch of concern on his face. “I know this is new for you—war, Heaven, Hell, all of it—so it’s probably a lot to take in. I swear it’ll be fine. We’re good at what we do, and we protect our own.”

“‘M not worried, Buck,” Steve says, and it’s mostly true. “I enlisted, remember? ‘Sides, I’ve been fighting since before I knew how to throw a proper punch.” 

Bucky laughs and turns back to the room at large. “Stop hollering and pack up, soldiers! It’s time to earn our keep.” 


	11. HEAVEN: Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE 8/26: a quick apology for everyone waiting for the next update. I was planning on posting another chapter tonight, but I'm flying out for the fall semester in less than 12 hours and I just don't have the energy to do final edits and post. That said, I also have a 7-hour layover, so I'll probably edit & post a chapter or two then. Thank you for your patience, I love you all.

Hell is at once exactly like Steve imagined, and nothing like what he imagined. It’s certainly dark and chaotic and terrifying, just as he was taught. There are no screaming souls, though, no eternal punishment in pits of fire. Definite shortage of fire, although Bucky assures him that there’s plenty of fire once you go deep enough into Hell. (Steve secretly hopes they never have to go that deep, but he knows better than to expect that kind of luck.) The demons they keep running into more than make up for the lack of screaming souls; they seem to find some twisted joy in the unholy scratch of their voices, screeching and cawing. They never see the Red Skull or Zola, though; Steve imagines they’re lurking somewhere very deep in Hell, protected by legions of demons. 

The missions are not as brutal as Steve expected—at least, not immediately. Yes, they end up neck-deep in carnage more than once, clawing their way out from among the carcasses of demons they had to kill. Yes, more often than not they’re so far past the boundaries of Hell Steve can barely tell where the path out is. But every successful mission—every nest of demons blown to bits, every HYDRA outpost left in sizzling flames, every host of angels safely brought out from the depth of the shadows—leaves him high on the kind of adrenaline and excitement that only comes from cheating death by the skin of your teeth.

Steve isn’t alone in his thrill fuelled by mortal danger, either. Almost every mission, the Howling Commandos burst out of Hell laughing like crazed men, overflowing with glee and making a racket that rivals any nest of screeching demons. Nobody mentions the fierce and desperate storm roiling just underneath the exuberance, the bone-deep determination to make up for the terror and danger of their missions with unrestrained and even exaggerated joy for their lives. Even though they never talk about it, they know too well that every mission could be their last. One wrong move, and they might never see the light of Heaven again.

Still, it turns out even death-defying missions can become routine after a while. The pattern of their missions doesn’t change much: debrief, enter Hell, locate target, execute mission, retreat, debrief. It becomes familiar in his bones soon enough, almost to the point of instinct. The Howling Commandos work well together, both in the razor-sharp focus of live missions and in the post-mission fall from adrenaline highs. Jones is steady and solid, especially after post-mission debriefs when they’re all on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion and stress. Dernier is almost frighteningly good at blowing things up, exactly as Bucky said, and sometimes he conjures up showers of beautiful light to simply watch after missions. Morita’s got a quiet sort of steel during missions, and a quiet sort of humour that hits when you least expect outside of them. Falsworth and Dugan argue like an old married couple, ribbing each other like their lives depend on it, but they also move seamlessly together in the field. 

And Bucky… well, Bucky’s spectacular. He’s cool and collected and faultlessly focused during missions, and it’s really rather easy to tell why the Howling Commandos gave him their loyalty so willingly. Bucky is precise and deadly and unstoppable, always prepared to deal with anything unexpected, and Steve understands viscerally why the Council monikered him ‘Soldier.’ Bucky is truly a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, and always to be trusted and relied on. Steve sometimes has to stop himself from staring like a lovesick fool, lost and drowning in how much he simply  _ feels _ for him.

The missions bleed together, eventually. They get one success under their belt, and then another, and another, until no one except perhaps the Fury can keep track of how many they’ve conducted successfully. They’re not  _ always _ successful, but there are no catastrophic failures, either: just a raid with some enemy survivors they’d hoped to kill, a capture mission that ends with dead demons instead of live interrogation targets, and the like. They don’t lose any of their own.

Steve wonders if he’s the only one who finds himself exhilarated, if the rest of the Commandos also find the rush of victory as heady and addicting. They don’t have much time for introspection between missions—he often wishes he could talk during some of their long stakeouts, but silence is rather important to remaining undetected—so it’s hard to be sure. Maybe it’s because this is Steve’s first time in battle, the first time he’s actually  _ able  _ to participate and not fall behind. A reckless surge of bravado and power runs in his blood. It’s almost like they’re invincible, indestructible, unstoppable. It’s almost easy. It’s almost like a dream, like the war Steve so desperately wanted to but never got to fight on Earth.

That’s a bad sign, Steve knows. Thinking of this war, this endless race with death on their tails, as a dream. He curses himself the second he thinks it, knowing with absolute certainty that he’s jinxed himself. Maybe, if he doesn’t say anything about it, then just maybe it’ll be okay.

* * * 

It’s not okay.

That’s the first thing Steve thinks, as he awakes surrounded by gleeful demons. He tries to stand, to attack them, but he finds himself bound by invisible ropes. His Grace, too, seems to be dampened somehow, flowing sluggishly through his fingers instead of buzzing as it normally does. A quick glance around confirms that the rest of the Howling Commandos, including Bucky, are in similar states, trapped by invisible bonds. Well, he thinks bitterly and perhaps a little hysterically, at least he knows now that he wasn’t the only one affected by their improbable streak of victories.

His head aches something fierce, but he tries to think through the pain to remember just how the mission went all to hell. (Literally, haha, and it’s possible he’s closer to hysteria than he initially thought.) It was  _ supposed _ to be a standard in-and-out kind of mission, hit what the Fury’s intel said was a training facility—and Steve very carefully doesn’t think about what it might have cost other SHIELD operatives to get that information—and get out fast before they get caught. 

It’s pretty obvious that the “before they get caught” part of the mission parameters got fucked, but Steve isn’t so sure where the whole thing started falling apart. He remembers the stakeout—on the short end at a couple of hours—and Bucky’s plan to attack from three sides. He remembers charging in, Grace burning like tingling coals at the tips of his fingers, Bucky at his back. He remembers Morita’s shocked shout, Dernier’s panicked report of an unexpected nest of fully-trained demons, Bucky’s frantic order to retreat. He remembers the growing screech as more demons approached them at a rapid pace, encircling them and trapping them in a matter of seconds. He remembers—he remembers trying to fight them, knowing it wouldn’t be enough. He remembers a blast that knocked him backwards, and Bucky’s terrified expression looking back at him. He remembers the world going dark.

And then he woke up here, with his arms and legs tied, helpless. Dread rises, fast and inexorable like an incoming tide. They’re trapped. They’re  _ trapped _ , captured, stuck, and there’s no rescue coming for them. Fuck, and he’s willing to bet no one even knows where they are; the landscape here looks nothing like the last thing Steve remembers, which means they were probably moved while unconscious. Which means no known escape route. Which means—

Something warm and soft slides into his hands where they’re trapped behind him. Steve starts, jerked out of his spiraling thoughts, to find Bucky’s eyes fixed on him. Clear like ice, grey-blue and beautiful, and frowning faintly in concern. Steve smiles weakly in reassurance, and Bucky’s lips twist for a moment into a strained smile. He squeezes his fingers once in an unspoken question, and Steve squeezes back. 

“So, this is shit,” Dugan says behind him. Falsworth laughs drily.

“It is rather unfortunate,” Dernier agrees. He doesn’t seem too concerned; but then, nothing ever seems to leave Dernier very concerned. 

Steve, on the other hand, is fighting to quell his panic. Everywhere he looks, he finds dozens of glinting eyes, their gazes boring into him like a thousand daggers. He keeps expecting one of them to break ranks and lunge. 

“What the hell, we’ve been in worse scrapes,” Morita says. He sounds like he’d throw his hands up in the air, if only they’d been free to move.

“Too bad Sarge’s stuck with us. Bet you’re dying to pull off another impossible-reckless rescue, huh?” Jones teases.

Bucky glares, half-hearted. “Will you all shut up for just a moment? I am  _ trying _ to think of a way to save all your asses once  _ again _ .”

“Think they’ll finally make you Captain for this, Bucky?” Steve asks. He’s a little desperate to join in on the banter, hoping it’ll calm his racing heart. 

“Ha! Promoted at last!”

“Promise we’ll throw you a celebratory party, Sarge.”

“I said  _ quiet _ , you assholes.”

There’s a muffled sound that might be bitten-off laughter, but the rest of the Howling Commandos do fall quiet. Bucky’s got that frown on his face that means he’s twisting his brain into pretzels trying to think of something good. Steve gives his hand a light squeeze, hoping to convey some small comfort. He meets Bucky’s eyes for just a split second, suppressing a wince as the turn of his head makes his bonds chafe against his neck. Bucky tries to shake out his wings, but the ropes are holding them back far too tight and he only ends up crushing a bunch of feathers. 

A few of the demons grow daring, approaching them with feral grins. Steve spits at the nearest one. He can practically feel the other Commandos glaring up a storm, too, almost challenging the demons. The one closest to Steve—the one that was advancing on Bucky—turns to him with face twisted in disgust and contempt. Steve growls at him, baring his teeth. His body might be immobilized, sure, and his Grace weakened from the catastrophe of a battle that landed them here, but Steve’s used to fights with the odds stacked against him. Besides, he’s not even trying to  _ win _ this fight, not now; he just needs to keep them off Bucky, give him time to think. 

The demon stalks towards him slowly, clearly enraged. Steve tries not to gulp. Don’t run, don’t back down, don’t let them see you’re afraid. He can do this.

Suddenly, he hears Bucky’s voice in his head.  _ Full disclosure, this is fucking insane _ , it says. Steve jerks his head over to look at Bucky, but his lips haven’t moved. Bucky notices his glance and quirks a small smile at him, wiggling his fingers where their hands are still clasped together. Grace, Steve realizes with a start. Bucky’s speaking to them all—or well, speaking directly into their  _ minds _ —with Grace.

_ We’d be disappointed otherwise,  _ Falsworth’s voice echoes across Steve’s mind.

_I left a signal, kinda like a homing beacon, back in Heaven_ , Bucky’s voice says. _I can barely sense it now, and I think I have just enough Grace left to get us there, but not much else. Jones, I need you to find a way to blast us free of these bonds. Morita, same with our Grace; we’re no match for them held back like this. Falsworth, Dugan, your job is to distract the demons until we’re free, body and Grace._ _Dernier, make sure they don’t follow us once we’re moving out. And Steve—_ Bucky pauses a moment, breathes, then hesitates. He sighs after a moment, shaking his head. “I’m almost out,” he says out loud this time. “Can’t risk it. Steve, do you remember Richard Hayes? I need you to do what you did with him, outside the pictures.”

Steve remembers Richard Hayes all too well. Big guy, walked around with his head tipped up like he owned all of New York. Free with his hands, both groping and punching. Steve got in at least a few fights with him every month, and ended up in the gutter almost every time for his trouble. But outside the pictures? There, Bucky had shown up out of the blue, incandescent with fury, and knocked Hayes straight out of the alley with a kick to his rear.

Steve searches his memories frantically, trying to remember what was special about that fight. Hayes was yelling rudely at the recruitment reels before the show, and Steve told him to cut it out. Hayes dragged him out through the back door, into that dingy little alley. Steve got knocked into the garbage cans in the corner after a few punches. The metal of it dug into the skin of his arms, cut his lips. He grabbed the lid, hoping it might help block a few of those steel-fisted punches, but Hayes wrenched it easily from his hands. Steve threw a punch that barely glanced, and Hayes—wait.

Steve quirks an eyebrow at Bucky, trying his best to convey the circle of the garbage can lid with a circular turn of his head. Bucky smiles, pleased, and nods fast.

_ Go _ , Bucky’s voice echoes, one last time.

Steve jerks his head up. The demon that had been advancing on him is almost close enough to touch, now. 

“Bowler, can you believe these idiots?” he hears Falsworth say loudly. “I mean, look at them!”

“Bet I could kill more of them than you, Brit,” Dugan shoots back. They fall rapidly into loud banter, determinedly egging on the demons. The demons, including the one targeting Steve, turn their heads to glare at the pair. Steve tunes out the rest of the conversation; he’ll just become more worried if he pays attention, and he needs to focus on figuring out how the hell he’s going to apply the garbage can lid to the rapidly approaching fight. He  _ thinks _ Bucky wants him to try and shield the Howling Commandos as they fight, make sure nobody gets hurt too badly, although he can’t exactly ask Bucky to be sure. He takes a deep breath, trusting his instincts to understand Bucky after more than twenty years as his best friend. He has to focus on how best to shield them all, as soon as Jones and Morita set him free.

Mere seconds later, the invisible bonds around his body slither free, and his Grace springs back full-force immediately afterwards. Steve feels something drag them all upwards and right, and he assumes Bucky’s taking them to the homing beacon. A few columns of bright light sprout behind them, followed by a huff of Dernier’s breath. More than a few demons burst out, though, and Steve knows this is the moment. A breath, and then he closes his eyes and molds seven shields in the shape of elongated disks with his Grace. Steve opens his eyes long enough to make sure each Howling Commando has a shield in position behind them, and then he focuses on absorbing whatever impact the shields take and keeping them up even as he feels his Grace sapping slowly. 

There are spires and pits of fire all around, and Steve realizes that they’re in the depths of Hell Bucky described before: fiery and deadly, where angels were never meant to be. His wings flare with sharp pain, and he doesn’t need to look to know they’ve been singed. The rest of the Commandos aren’t faring much better, either, and the darkness seems to stretch out forever. Bucky’s got a glazed look on his face, as if his mind is almost somewhere else entirely.

“He’s gonna collapse soon!” Steve cries. “Dugan, Falsworth, give him whatever you’ve got left. We’ve got to bolster him. Hell, Morita, Jones, you better help too. Dernier and I’ve got the back, I promise.”

Truthfully, the rest of the Commandos look a bare breath or two away from collapse themselves, but they reach out a hand to grip Bucky somewhere. The palms of their hands glow blue, and Steve knows they’re feeding what little Grace they still have into Bucky. He squeezes Dernier’s shoulder once before turning towards the back again; it’s his job, now, to make sure no one gets hurt while they’re focused on helping Bucky.

It seems to go on forever, this desperate path of destruction through Hell. The acrid smell of singed feathers and burnt flesh tease at the edge of his senses, but he has neither the presence of mind nor the energy to check its source. The shields take up every ounce of strength he has left. He doesn’t doubt his teammates are fighting to the very last scrap of Grace in their bodies, either. 

This is it, he thinks. They either make it out here, or they die.

Finally,  _ finally _ , the world lightens around them. They burst out of the bounds of Hell like a rampaging tornado, and it’s all Steve can do to hold on to consciousness. SHIELD looms somewhere ahead of them, coming into focus. Even looking around to make sure everyone made it out safely seems to take a herculean effort. There’s a smouldering trail in their wake, a disturbing cloud of smoke rising from their collapsed bodies, but at least they’re all here, thank God. Steve waits long enough to make sure he can see everyone’s faces, hear their hearts beating, before he slumps down. Beside him, Bucky’s already still and motionless, his face still drawn in effort. 

For a moment, the thought that he almost lost Bucky leaves Steve breathless with the ache of it. His lungs seize at the thought of Bucky dead, of Bucky Fallen in the godforsaken depths of Hell. His fingers tremble with the horror of it. 

Without real conscious thought, Steve leans forward and presses his lips against Bucky’s almost before he’s aware of it. He breathes, just once, against those lips. They are softer and warmer than he imagined. Bucky twitches a little under his lips, bringing Steve back to his senses. He draws back, startled; this isn’t how he’d intended their first kiss to go. 

“Sorry, Buck,” he whispers, although he’s pretty sure Bucky can’t hear him right now. “Didn’t mean to do that when you’re…” Before he can finish the sentence, Steve slumps over Bucky’s body, finally succumbing to exhaustion. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the angst begin! >:D  
> As always, kudos/comments/feedback/concrit/etc make me a happy girl.


	12. HEAVEN: Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you that don't follow me on tumblr: I've been flying for 14 hours and I didn't get a chance to edit & post this chapter before I left. I'm at the airport in the middle of a 7-hour layover now, so here it is. I'll post another chapter in a few minutes, as soon as I'm done editing it, as an apology for missing last night's update. 
> 
> In other news, check out Chapter 7 to see amazing new art by my artist, milollita!!

Healing from exhaustion of the death-defying calibre turns out to be an agonizingly slow process. The snail’s pace of his recovery—regrowing the charred feathers of his wings, replenishing his Grace—frustrates Steve to no end. At least everyone got out safe, thank _God._ At least he has Bucky by his side while they both heal. At least they know how to talk each other out of black moods born of too much time trapped in a bed, how to hold each other close when nightmares strike.

Steve wonders where the rest of the Howling Commandos are, why they aren’t in the same facility as him and Bucky. The nurses just smile at him when he asks, no answer forthcoming. He tries wandering around and searching when he’s finally allowed to _walk_ out of the hospital bed, but they’re not anywhere Steve can find.

The reason becomes clear enough when, two weeks after their miraculous escape, the Fury comes to visit them in the hospital.

“The only reason you are _not_ buried in reparation charges right now,” he growls, “is that we need you too much. The rest of your teammates remain inadequately healed from your _catastrophe_ of a strike to be on active duty. I cannot afford to be short a team right now, especially one so specialized as yours. You are being reassigned as a two-man team, just the pair of you. You will resume active duty next week, as soon as my medical team clears you.” The Fury disappears without leaving them a breath to answer, and Steve is left blinking, dumbfounded.

“So uh, I’m guessing he’s pissed?” he asks Bucky dryly.

Bucky chuckles, a thin shaky sound. “You could say that, yeah. Pretty sure he wanted to finish us off himself, honestly.”

“Think there’s any chance we could convince him almost dying _wasn’t_ our fault?”

“ _Please_. He probably thinks we planned it all along, to have an excuse to stop working for him or something.”

Steve can’t help it; he bursts out laughing. It’s not short or restrained, either, but the loud and drawn out kind that follows on the tail of panic. He doesn’t know how to deal with it all—the terror of the capture, the fear of dying and of losing his teammates, of losing _Bucky,_  the wild desperate adrenaline of their escape, the surge of pure emotion of kissing Bucky, the miserable listlessness of recovery, the accusation of the Fury’s announcement—so he just laughs. Bucky looks concerned for a moment, but he joins seconds later, letting everything wash over him in bouts of laughter that leaves them both shaking in their beds.

“Come over here,” Steve says, once they’ve calmed down enough to speak properly. His cheeks and stomach ache from too much laughing. He just wants to hold Bucky, needs his physical presence in his arms to reassure himself that they made it out alive. Bucky doesn’t question him, just makes sure they won’t be caught sneaking around their room before hopping out of bed. The short walk between his bed and Steve’s is arduous, given his still-healing body, and he’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat by the time he climbs into Steve’s bed. Steve has the entirely irrational urge to kiss the strain off Bucky’s face.

Bucky curls himself into Steve’s side with a relieved groan. Steve just wraps his arms tight around Bucky, running one hand through the messy black hair while the other strokes gently down his back. Bucky makes a pleased little sound. Steve lets out a soft breath and tucks his face atop Bucky’s head.

“How much—how much do you remember? Getting out of Hell, I mean,” Steve asks quietly, when he can no longer stand the suspended moment of _something_ between them. He hasn’t managed to bring up the kiss yet; the thought of asking Bucky about it terrifies him, leaves him tongue-tied with a shaking heart. He’s cheating now, settling for a roundabout question, but it’s better than nothing.

“Hurt. Tired. It was dark. Could hear you and Dernier fighting behind me. Jones and Dugan and the rest feeding me their Grace—it was warm, sort of. Uh. Almost passed out right there when we finally broke out of Hell…” Bucky trails off, as if he can sense the way Steve’s quivering with tension.

“And?” he prompts in a whisper, terrified that speaking too loud might somehow shatter whatever potential this moment holds.

“And… and then SHIELD was there, and I could breathe again. I was so tired, and everything hurt, and—”

Steve very suddenly can’t wait anymore. He presses his lips gently against Bucky’s. “Do you remember this?”

Bucky watches him, wide-eyed and shocked. Steve wants to crawl into the gaping space between his ribs. Fuck, Bucky _doesn’t_ remember, Bucky doesn’t want this, Bucky’s going to _hate_ him and he _can’t_ —

Soft lips meet his, pressing insistently. Steve lets out a surprised gasp into the kiss, and Bucky takes that chance to lick into Steve’s mouth. It’s desperate but not heated: a tipping point, a promise for more, an inevitable coalescence of their entwined hearts. Steve lets himself melt into Bucky’s arms, and feels Bucky relax in return.

It seems like centuries later when they break apart, breathless. Bucky’s eyes are sparkling with joy, and Steve’s sure his face is mirroring the incredulous overjoyed look on Bucky’s face. “You—you sure?” Bucky stutters out. “I didn’t… I thought, I thought maybe I got so desperate that I dreamed it. Hallucinated it, maybe.”

“Fuck yes, I’m sure. Been sure for months. Hell, I’m pretty sure I secretly wanted this for years before I figured out it’s what I wanted.”

The uncertainty on Bucky’s face breaks apart, shatters into a million shining shards of joy. Steve wants to kiss him, just to taste the happiness on his tongue. So he does. Bucky laughs, pleased.

Recovery is more bearable, after that. Time stops moving so slow when he can hold Bucky close in his arms the way he wants to, when he can kiss the guilt off of Bucky’s lips. His burned wings sting less, and his injured bones ache less.

But the missions, once they start… those are bad. He still has Bucky by his side, and that’s probably what keeps him from jumping right off the deep end. They’re doing the same kind of missions they used to, but now there’s two of them instead of seven. Stakeouts become longer. Exhaustion becomes deeper. Near misses become nearer, and tight spots become tighter. Death chases closer on their heels than it ever has, and Steve swears he feels its cold fingers around his ankle more than once. They don’t have an extraction or a rescue team anymore, either; that, more than anything, makes it clear to them that they’re expendable to the Fury, that this is some sort of twisted punishment for the failed mission that cost them the Howling Commandos.

Neither of them is exactly surprised when, less than a month into this new arrangement, they end up captured once more. It still sucks. This time, there’s far more demons than before, and no team by their side. The bonds are tighter, the clamp on his Grace more severe. Steve looks at Bucky to ask what his plan is, when suddenly one of the demons surges forward and seizes him by the arm. He can’t quite hold back a cry of surprised pain as the demon’s claws dig into his flesh. He casts a panicked glance around for Bucky, and finds him similarly grabbed by unfriendly hands.

“I recognize them,” a demon says. “They are part of the group that escaped weeks ago.”

Oh, _shit_. It’s possible the situation just became much, much worse. The demon gestures to someone beyond Steve’s field of vision, and before Steve can quite wrap his head around his predicament, the sea of demons around them parts to reveal a face Steve hoped he’d never have to see: the Red Skull. He stands taller than the rest of them, gazing down with a condescension that grates on Steve’s nerves already. Steve can barely make out the edges of Zola’s form lurking behind the Red Skull.

“How daring of you to come back to Hell after that _stunning_ escape,” the Red Skull drawls. His voice grates painfully against his ears, and Steve flinches away from the sound. The demon holding Steve shakes him roughly, clearly displeased. Around him, the other demons erupt into hisses and screeches of rage. After a moment, the Red Skull silences them with a raised hand.

Bucky’s eyes, when Steve finds them, are wide and fearful. That frightens Steve even more than the Red Skull’s words. He thrashes in his captor’s hold, desperate and futile. The demons laugh.

“What do you say we have a little fun with our friends? They were so _kind_ as to revisit us, after all. It would be rather rude to leave them unacknowledged, don’t you think?” The Red Skull grins, vicious and cruel, as his followers cheer raucously. Dark eyes rake over Steve and Bucky, considering, and then the demon raises a bony finger to point directly at Steve’s heart. “Let’s start with that one,” he proclaims loudly.

Steve probably should have expected that. He’s still little, after all; the serum didn’t really take on his Soul before he died. He _can_ project large and intimidating if he really wants to, but he usually considers it a waste of Grace. He may be reconsidering that decision now, as two demons grip him too tight by the arms and drag him in front of the Red Skull. Steve thrashes as best he can, but his body is bound tight by the same invisible ropes that held him before, and his Grace is still trapped.

“Take your goddamn filthy hands off of him!” Bucky screams. He already sounds so far away to Steve. “I said don’t touch him! I swear on everything I am, if you lay a fucking finger on him, I’ll fucking destroy you!”

The Red Skull just waves a dismissive hand without taking his eyes off Steve, and Bucky’s voice is reduced to indistinct muffles. Steve watches, frozen both by fear and by demonspell, as a bony finger comes to trace down the exposed stretch of his wings. It burns like fire, like the cold glide of a blade, and Steve can’t suppress the quiet whimper that slips out. The Red Skull’s grin widens. “We’re gonna have a lot of fun, you and I,” he croons.

Steve desperately wants to close his eyes and hide from this, but he can’t run away now. He won’t give HYDRA the satisfaction of giving in; although he’s fairly certain he’s going to die here, like this, he’s going to die fighting.

Those clawed fingers tear the armor away from Steve’s neck and leave another burning line against his throat. Steve jerks away, pulling as hard as he can on his arms. There are noises behind him, muffled cries and a distant thud. Steve frowns, confused, and the Red Skull does the same. Before they can look around for the source of the commotion, a blast rocks the Red Skull backwards a few feet, throwing him hard on his back. Steve uses the momentary distraction to wrench himself free of the demons holding him, rushing to Bucky’s side.

Bucky is incandescent. In his eyes, Steve catches the retreating shadows of the desperate and terrified rush that probably fueled this display. The demons around them are roaring with offended fury, but Bucky shines so bright that even the Red Skull doesn’t dare approach him. His Grace flares hot and wild around him, a flickering halo of pulsing blue-silver light. Steve can’t help but stare for a moment, awed; he was so sure that Bucky was tapped out already, but here he is, terrifying and beautiful.

“Run, Steve!” Bucky yells, snatching Steve out of his entirely inappropriate reverie.

“Not without you!” Steve yells right back. There is absolutely no way in _hell_ that he is abandoning Bucky alone to the tender mercies of these demons. HYDRA clearly hated them both enough to begin with; now they’re practically insane with pure hatred and rage, and Steve doesn’t doubt that they’d be torn apart in seconds without the protection of Bucky’s Grace.

“I order you, as your superior, to run!”

“Not a chance, Barnes! I’m your fucking _friend_ and I’m not going anywhere!”

“Dammit, Stevie, just go!”

“I’m not leaving you!”

“Don’t fucking argue with me!”

“I said I’m not leaving without you!”

Bucky lets out a loud groan. His Grace flickers for just a moment, and Steve steps forward, concerned.

The world erupts in white. Steve is blasted backwards. He screams as he’s torn away from Bucky. He reaches out a futile hand, far too short to reach Bucky’s rapidly diminishing form. Bucky watches him with wide eyes, and it’s the terrible hope in them that prevents Steve from fighting as Bucky forcefully sends him out of Hell.

Steve watches, helpless, as Bucky’s Grace falters. Bucky crumples.

The demons attack.

Steve hears Bucky’s scream echoing in his ears long after he vanishes from sight.


	13. HELL: Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so late! Unpacking & getting ready for classes tomorrow took up most of my day.  
> Here's the first chapter of Part 3, which also happens to be another one of my favourite chapters. I'll promise you the rest of the fic tomorrow!

# PART III: HELL

Bucky Falls. Steve does not.

* * *

The Fury tells him sacrifice is one of the few things able to amplify Grace. Steve is a Cherub, now.

Bucky was a Cherub, too.

Bucky’s gone.

* * *

SHIELD gives Steve a moniker. He insists on being called the Captain. Nobody asks why.

Every night, he hears the Howling Commandos laughing as they tease Bucky about finally becoming Captain one day.

* * *

He asks the Fury, once, where the Howling Commandos are. The Fury tells him they are retired, now, that they never recovered from their injuries fully. The Fury tells him they do not wish to see Steve.

He does not ask a second time. He does not question them or blame them. Bucky is gone because of him. He does not want to see himself, either.

* * *

There is a new team called the Avengers. The name is short for the tongue-in-cheek codename “Avenging Angels.” Steve doesn’t ask questions when the Fury assigns him. They are still seven: the Widow, the Hawk, the Iron Man, the Hulk, the Thunder, the Falcon, and Steve, the Captain.

But this time, nobody welcomes Steve with loud jokes and open arms. This time, there is no built-in camaraderie, no bone-deep loyalty. This time, there are no nicknames.

That’s fine with Steve. This time, there is no Bucky, either.

* * *

The Avengers fight well.

The Fury doesn’t ask too many questions of Steve, just warns him not to cost him any more agents. Steve nods. He doesn’t much like talking anymore.

He gets a mission, completes it, and brings the agents back alive. He disappears. He gets another mission, completes it, and brings the agents back alive. He disappears. He gets another mission.

He gets another mission.

He gets another mission.

He gets another—

* * *

The Avengers first learn to tolerate one another, and then to trust one another, and finally to enjoy one another’s company. They grow to be a true team, maybe even friends.

Steve does not. He doesn’t speak with them except to give mission debriefs and orders. They do not speak with him except to give situation updates and mission reports.

It’s easier this way.

* * *

His aura is changing colors. Steve doesn’t notice at first, but when the red catches his eye, he starts looking.

The gold of it is duller now. Splotches of red spread over the gold glow. Rivulets of black streak between pools of red. Steve watches with a morbid sort of curiosity as the red-black stains grow wider and wider with each mission.

Nobody else knows. Nobody else sees his aura.

Nobody except Bucky ever saw his aura.

* * *

They almost lose the Hawk once. Then they almost lose the Widow trying to pry him out of Hell’s ruthless grip. It takes a full week for SHIELD’s team of healers to confirm for certain that they will survive.

Steve doesn’t speak for that entire week. He doesn’t sleep, either, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t sleep much anyway. Not anymore.

* * *

The Fury looks at Steve sometimes with an odd light in his eyes. In anyone else, Steve would call it pity, even concern. But the Fury would never pity Steve. Why would a commander feel pity for one of his countless soldiers? He’s made it clear they’re expendable, after all, both Steve and Bucky.

Steve doesn’t have the energy to be offended. It’s easier to pretend he doesn’t see it. In fact, it’s easier not to see the Fury at all.

Steve stops going in for in-person briefings unless the mission absolutely demands it. A Cherub called Coulson delivers him mission files. Steve tells him, the first time, to leave it in his quarters. He doesn’t bother looking up, and he never sees Coulson’s face.

* * *

Everything reminds him of Bucky. A flash of silver reminds him of Bucky. A dark-haired Archangel reminds him of Bucky. An echo of unrestrained laughter reminds him of Bucky. A glimpse of trees reminds him of Bucky.

The Falcon reminds him of Bucky.

The Falcon does not push Steve, ever, but he is always a solid presence at Steve’s side, just like Bucky was. The Falcon is kind and calming. The Falcon smiles at him brightly when their eyes meet. The Falcon is unstoppable in battle, and unshakeable outside it.

The Falcon is not Steve’s friend. Not exactly. But the Falcon is the first angel Steve speaks to beyond what the mission necessitates. The Falcon is the only one who can sometimes touch Steve without being violently repelled. The Falcon asks how Steve is doing every day, even though Steve never answers. The Falcon beams at him, proud and pleased and overwhelming, the first time Steve does.

The Falcon and Steve are not friends, but sometimes Steve thinks they could be. Sometimes, in the dead silence of the night with nothing but loneliness as his company, Steve thinks he might even want them to be.

* * *

The Falcon has a way of nudging Steve along without ever pushing him. The Falcon persuades Steve to stay and chat after missions sometimes, instead of disappearing alone to claw off the lingering stench of Hell and torture himself with silence. The Falcon tells Steve to call him Wilson, muttering something about having too many birds around. Steve does. It feels awkward calling the Falcon “Wilson” when Wilson still calls him the Captain. So Steve tells Sam to call him Rogers. (He cannot bear to be _Steve_ , not anymore, not to anyone else.)

And then suddenly, before he quite realizes what is happening, Steve has what feels like it might be the start of a friendship with his teammate. He doesn’t quite know what to do with that.

* * *

The Widow is the next to meet Steve— _Steve_ , not the Captain. Whip-smart and sharp as she is, the Widow has a haunted look in her eyes that Steve recognizes from his own face. They sit in silence together, sometimes, and it is somehow less suffocating. The Hawk joins them, too, after the horrid train wreck of a mission that leaves him captive for three days.

It’s the closest Steve’s felt to peace since Bucky. It tastes like betrayal on his tongue.

* * *

There is something heavy about the Thunder—not the “sinking too fast to the bottom of the ocean” kind but the “drowsing under four blankets in the winter” kind. The Thunder is solid and warm and steady. The Thunder, as Steve learns later, is oldest of them all by many centuries. There is a sorrow in his eyes born of seeing too much and losing more; there is a faraway look in his eyes born of belonging in a different age, a different world. They find companionship in shared loss and alienness. It is not quite friendship, Steve thinks, but it is enough.

* * *

The Hulk and the Iron Man seem to get along splendidly. Steve finds this utterly unbelievable, perhaps even more so than the fact that he is an angel and Bucky is gone.

Steve has something of an unspoken arrangement with the Hulk; they are not friends, exactly—Steve doesn’t really have friends anymore—but they are friendly. Civil. They revolve around each other like two moons around the same planet, passing through and next to each other’s orbit without ever crashing.

The Iron Man, on the other hand… Steve does _not_ get along with the Iron Man. They are at once too different and too similar to fit together smoothly: too serious for the one and too cavalier for the other, too aggressive and stubborn for both. They argue in almost every conversation they share. Steve enjoys the anger and the frustration, which make his heart beat on something other than faded memory and jagged guilt for once. They share a glance, sometimes, in quiet moments off the battlefield, and in those moments Steve thinks the Iron Man might understand.

He does not know what to do with that understanding. He just keeps arguing, and relishing the rush of his blood.

* * *

Steve learns their names, eventually. Wilson and Romanova and Barton and Odinson and Banner and Stark. He knows there’s more to their names—for one, he’s heard Barton and Romanova call each other Clint and Natasha—but it feels private, feels privileged, so he does not ask.

He is Rogers now, to all of them. _Steve_ still sounds wrong in voices that aren’t Bucky’s or the Howling Commandos’. But Steve finds, to his surprise, that he can handle Rogers.

* * *

The Avengers are SHIELD’s best performing team. The war with Hell is going as well as a war can; there are even some lower tier angels, mostly Archangels and Angelics not assigned to protectorate duties, that don’t realize Hell is making a violent attempt at seizing control of Heaven.

It’s a painful echo of Steve’s early Howling Commando days. The missions are grueling but rewarding, even fun in the odd “we cheated Death again!” way. His team fights well together on the battlefield, and fits well enough together outside of it. Sure, the Avengers are less raucous and less familiar with one another than the Howling Commandos were, more of a band of highly qualified misfits than a commando unit of loyal soldiers, but the similarities are enough. Steve aches to his very teeth with how much he misses the Commandos, misses Bucky.

He also remembers all too well what happened the last time he thought things were going well. The Howling Commandos almost Fell together, and then he lost Bucky. If he loses an Avenger—or God forbid, all of them—then… Steve doesn’t think he’s strong enough to handle it. He’s not exactly sure _what_ he’d do, but it would definitely be something desperate and inadvisable.

The Avengers are fighting well, the war seems to be hurtling towards an early victory, and Steve is terrified for what comes next.

* * *

Angels are Falling more frequently than ever, and no one can tell by whom or what. It’s brutal, far beyond anything Steve’s seen or even imagined. The good cases come home as blood-drained corpses, as broken bodies. The bad ones come home as a smattering of ashes, a handful of charred feathers. The worst ones don’t come home at all.

No one who’s been close enough to see the attack properly has lived to talk about it, which means SHIELD has no description to work with. The ones who did saw it from far away ramble about shifting shadows and strange billows of smoke, and then a cut-off scream as Hellfire flared to envelope its victim. A few mention being immobilized, their Grace restrained by something too strong to overpower, forcing them to watch helplessly as a fellow angel Fell.

Steve is familiar enough with HYDRA’s capture tactics to recognize it when he hears it. He tells the Fury as much. The Fury frowns but doesn’t look the least bit surprised. He does, however, call all the Avengers in for an emergency briefing the very next day.

“You are all likely aware of the unknown hostile Falling an alarming number of my angels as we speak,” the Fury says. He’s pacing the length of his office, an act of agitation enough out of the realm of his usual veneer of serenity to put them all on edge. “The Captain believes it to be HYDRA’s doing, based on the capture and restraint techniques used. Given the level of organized and targeted destruction, I am inclined to agree with him.

“That said, this is nothing like what have ever seen before, HYDRA or otherwise. This enemy has no face; in fact, we’re not even sure that this enemy is a demon at all. It might be a demon with extraordinary control over Hellfire, or some new creature we’ve never seen. It might be a new demonspell, a trap, an elaborate illusion, a new weapon. Hell, it might even be sentient Hellfire for all we know. The only intel we have is that it looks like smoke and shadows, uses bursts of Hellfire to Fall angels, and sometimes traps faraway angels as forced witnesses.

“This is now your first and only priority. Whatever side projects and periphery missions you have, scrap them. I want this thing gone before it takes any more angels. Is that clear?”

The Fury moves as if to leave, giving them no time to respond as usual. But then he pauses, just briefly. “Be careful,” he adds quietly. “I’d hate to lose my best team.”

And then he’s gone, leaving a pocket of stunned silence in his wake.

“I’m sorry, did I just hallucinate or did the Fury just… _worry_ for us?” Stark says eventually, disbelieving.

“Aw, he’s not that bad,” Barton insists.

“He _probably_ doesn’t want us all dead,” Wilson allows, but there’s a smirk on his lips that says he’s joking.

“Despite popular belief, the Fury is not evil or completely heartless. He cares about his agents,” Romanova adds quietly. Steve looks at her sharply, just fast enough to catch the fading tail of an unidentifiable emotion vanish from her eyes. She notices his gaze and gives him a small, rueful smile.

Stark lets out an incredulous squawk. Banner pats him on the shoulder lightly and shakes his head, which stops Stark from _saying_ anything but fails to quiet his exaggerated sputtering and scoffs of disbelief. Steve takes Banner’s limited intervention gladly; it’s more than any of the rest of them could do.


	14. HELL: Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the angst train continues!  
> I promised you the rest of the fic today, and you'll get it for sure. If nothing else, the big bang deadline is tonight, so I am absolutely obligated to finish it. I'll post the chapters as soon as I get done editing them!  
> This chapter is also known as "why did I decide to include so many characters, part 2"

Finding a shadow turns out to be exactly as hard as Steve imagined it would be. The Avengers chase smoke trails, blood trails, cold trails. They turn blind corners and climb over dead ends. They dig deep and fly high. They find nothing, and nothing, and nothing.

Frustration is a constant layer of sweat clinging to their skin. They’re not really built for this, most of them. They’re warriors more than detectives; they are soldiers, not spies. Patience does not come easily to them, does not sit well in their rushing blood. Stark is the most vocal about his mounting restlessness, but even the ever-unshakeable Wilson is showing signs of weariness. This can’t go on for long, Steve knows. Tension of this level is unsustainable, and either they’re going to explode at each other, or they’re going to become sloppy and get themselves killed. He doesn’t much fancy either option. Something needs to happen, and soon.

“I know who the hostile is,” Romanova says one day, with no preamble. “Or well, I know what he is.”

There’s a beat of silence in which everyone processes the sudden proclamation, and then Stark bursts out, “What the hell does that mean, you know _what_ he is?”

“There was a program that I knew of years ago. We’re talking back when Zola was barely a blip on SHIELD’s radar. They were… experimenting. It’s called the Winter Protocol; take an angel, and turn him into HYDRA’s best and most ruthless killer.”

“How?” Steve demands, a little more roughly than he means to.

“Persuasion. Mind control. Memory wipes. Brainwashing. Anything and everything that could make an obedient little attack dog out of an angel. They were unclear on the exact methods then, but the intention was clear enough. They didn’t get a chance to enact it fully, mostly because Zola couldn’t get his hands on an angel to try it on.”

“And you think that now they have found a successful subject,” Odinson says.

Romanova nods once.

“Well, fuck,” Barton says eventually.

“That’s… that’s pretty terrifying, yep,” Wilson adds.

Banner laughs, a short strangled sound as he shakes his head helplessly.

Steve’s inclined to agree with all of them. “How do we stop him?” he asks Romanova.

She shrugs. “We kill him,” she says flatly, and Steve wonders if he’s imagining the hint of remorse. “The point was to make the deadliest assassin possible. That’s why Zola needed an angel, so that he could exploit our own knowledge of our weaknesses. Plus, the Winter is supposed to be undetectable and thus unstoppable, hence all the smoke and shadows. The program was also designed to create a super soldier with no vulnerabilities; I doubt he’d react to fear or pain or anything else we throw at him. We either kill him, or he kills us.”

A noise of distress slips out of Steve. “But you said… you said he’s an angel. We can’t just kill him like that. We have to give him a chance to come back.”

“We might not have a choice,” Banner says, gentle and devastating. “Like the Widow said, it’ll probably be kill or be killed, Rogers.”

It doesn’t sit well with Steve, but the rest of his team appears to be in agreement, so he doesn’t say anything more on the subject. “What now, then?” he asks instead. “Romanova, you seem to be the expert here.”

“You won’t like it,” she warns. Steve doesn’t respond, though his stomach drop heavily. Romanova usually doesn’t bother trying to soften her blows, which means this must be _very_ bad.

“Go ahead,” Wilson prompts, when Romanova just keeps looking at Steve.

“We tail active strike teams on missions until he shows,” she says without taking her eyes off him. Steve knows she doesn’t miss it when he stiffens all over.

“Not a chance,” he bites out. “We aren’t using other angels as… as fucking bait.”

“It’s the best chance we’ve got,” Romanova says firmly. “The Winter is going to strike sometime, and we’ll be close by when he does. Hell, it might even give them a higher chance of survival, having us as backup.”

“Nat and I were a strike team once, you know,” adds Barton. “We know how they function, how they think. They won’t mind, not if it’ll help catch the Winter.”

“Sounds like a pretty solid plan to me,” Stark says. Steve rounds on him, a tirade about the importance of protecting other angels on the tip of his tongue, but Stark raises his hands in surrender before Steve gets a word out. “Listen, I don’t like it any more than you do, Cap. But they’re right, we won’t get a better chance.”

“We have all pledged to protect our fellow angels, no matter the cost to ourselves. I admit I am unhappy to see our own in mortal danger, but it is inevitable. We are not putting them in any more danger than they willingly put themselves in, Captain,” Odinson says.

Steve looks desperately to Banner and Wilson, praying for support. Banner shrugs, his face scrunched in apology. “I’m sorry, Rogers,” he says. “I haven’t got a better idea.”

Wilson’s frowning, which gives Steve a ray of hope, at least until he speaks. “I don’t like this, I really don’t. But I get the feeling we won’t get a choice, Rogers. The moment she takes this to the Fury, he’ll send us out to do exactly the same thing, won’t he?” The last part is aimed at Romanova, who doesn’t even blink. She just nods.

“I don’t want to go over your head, Rogers,” she says calmly. “But if that’s what it takes, I’ll do it. This is an unpleasant strategy, yes, but a necessary one.”

Steve barely holds back a growl. “That’s a low blow, _Widow_ , and you know it.”

She has the grace to wince, momentarily chagrined, but she doesn’t back down.

“Fine,” Steve says, a breath away from spitting the words at her. “We go in tomorrow. Do whatever you need to prepare and get a team on board.”

* * *

The strike team they’re tailing is capable, Steve must admit. They’re calm and silent and deadly as they take down a HYDRA training cell and retreat. The mission seems to be going well for both teams, and then—

They barely have time to realize they’ve been immobilized before the scream rends the air. The darkness breaks apart into the morbid light of dancing flames as Hellfire erupts like a volcano. It’s not just one angel it swallows this time, but the entire strike team.

At least, Steve thinks in that bitter-wry way that comes a step before hysteria, at least the plan worked. At least they smoked him out. The Winter isn’t bothering to hide himself from the Avengers; in fact, it’s almost as if he’s taunting them. He’s got his back to them, circling his prey in an unhurried pace as he watches the angels burn. And Romanova was right; he’s not a demon, but an angel.

It can’t be more than a few seconds before the flames die, leaving only flecks of ash and the lingering echoes of a scream, but it feels like it takes entire centuries. And then the Winter turns around, revealing his face to the Avengers just once as he vanishes into the shadows.

The Winter looks at them with a ghost’s face. With _Bucky’s_ face.

The world falls to pieces around Steve.

* * *

Steve doesn’t know how they make it out of Hell; by the time his ears stop ringing and his vision clears from a horrified blur, they’re back at SHIELD. His mind is still reeling, still stuttering over an endless loop of Bucky’s name. He feels miles and lifetimes away from his own body.

 _Bucky._ God, Bucky was—

Steve can’t bring himself to finish the thought. Beneath the chaotic turbulence of his mind, one conviction rises with the inevitable certainty of looming mountains: he has to save Bucky. He _has_ to.

The rest of the Avengers are glancing around warily, too shaken by what they just saw to be relaxed even within SHIELD’s gates. Steve wonders if any of the Avengers caught wind of the turmoil within him. Romanova might be looking at him a little more intently than at anyone else, although that might just be an imaginary figment of Steve’s reeling mind. He ducks his head and avoids her eyes, just to be safe. No one else appears to notice anything amiss,which reassures him somewhat. He keeps his head down, pretending to be struggling to cope with the horror of what they just saw—and it’s really not much of a pretence, given how hard his heart is still racing—and thinks fast.

It’s extremely unlikely that anyone else recognized Bucky, he concludes. After all, as far as Heaven at large is concerned, Bucky was— _is—_ just one used-to-be Cherub among hundreds. True, he was accomplished enough to have a moniker, and some fame may have come from that. But surely there were many other monikered angels. There’s no reason for the Avengers to know Bucky in particular. The things that might have marked Bucky down in recent history—his recklessness in turning Steve an angel, his missions with SHIELD—were either swept into the dark by an enraged Council or highly classified. They wouldn’t recognize Bucky, not when he was so changed, not with such a short glimpse. They couldn’t. No way.

Steve pretends there isn’t a note of desperate hope in that thought. The vague and entirely inadvisable plan currently forming in his head strongly relies on no one making the connection between him and Bucky, and if any of the Avengers recognizes Bucky, drawing the line between them is hardly a half-step more. And Steve can’t afford to have them involved, not in this. Half of them would do everything they can to stop him, and the other half would do everything they can to help. He knows with a conviction that runs deeper than the marrow of his bones that he has to do this, _and_ that this is too reckless, too stupid and wild and thoroughly implausible, to ask anyone to join him.

This is his fault. Bucky died for him, because of him; it’s only right that Steve be the one to bring him back or die trying. This is his mistake, and his mission.

Once his mind is made up, slipping away from the Avengers is surprisingly easy. He lets the conversation wash over him for a while, listening more to the tone of voice than the words. When it lulls for a moment, he nods decisively and tells them all to take a break and regain their balance however they need to before they meet again for a post-mission debrief. And then he slips away, fiercely glad for all those weeks spent slinking away alone after missions as no one tries to stop him.

Steve turns random corners and simply wanders until he’s sure that nobody followed him. After that, it’s a simple matter of retracing their footsteps back into the bowels of Hell where Bucky struck just hours ago. Steve stands there for a moment, uncertain; his plan didn’t quite stretch as far as figuring out how to _find_ Bucky once he got here. Luckily enough, he’s spared the trouble of aimless searching.

The darkness around him shifts, and Steve knows Bucky will be there only a split moment before he shows up. Hellfire surges up around him, lapping at his wings with angry tongues, and Steve throws up a protective layer of Grace like a full-body shield around himself. He does not take his eyes off of Bucky, who looks at him with eyes like frozen Brooklyn streets, no recognition or hesitation.

“You know me,” Steve says, quiet but firm. “Bucky, you know me.” Something shakes in Bucky’s eyes, trembles beneath the dead grey eyes. The Hellfire around him wavers, and for one breathless moment Steve thinks it just might be that easy. And then it rebounds, twice as vicious, and he can’t hold back a cry as the fiery tendrils scrape at his feathers, at his skin.

“Your name is Buchanan, but I call you Bucky. The Council monikered you Soldier, but the Howling Commandos—that’s your team, Buck—used to call you Sarge instead.” Steve tries his best to keep his voice level, to project calm and protection and love for this man who saved his life too many times to count.

Bucky’s eyes glint with what might be a flash of recognition before glazing over with confusion, with pain. He lets out a feral cry and stalks forward, body tense. Steve sees the punch coming before it hits, devastating and brutal, but he doesn’t try to stop it.

“You’re my mission!” Bucky yells, landing another blow against Steve’s chest. His breath stutters for a moment, but Steve doesn’t defend himself. He can’t bring himself to raise his hands against Bucky, especially not when he’s hurting so much.

“I’m your friend,” Steve responds. _I’m your lover,_ he almost adds, but they never did define the thing they shared after the Howling Commandos almost died. They didn’t have a chance, he thinks with a sharp pang of pain, and they might never get it. “I’m sorry, Bucky,” he says, as sincerely as he knows how. “I’m so goddamn sorry. I let you—I left you here t-to die. I’m so sorry, god, I’m so sorry.”

The apologies only seem to heighten Bucky’s confusion, which in turn feeds his desperate rage. Another blow lands against his ribcage, and then another on his shoulder. Steve doesn’t care, although some part of him thinks perhaps he should. If Bucky kills him here, it wouldn’t be any more than he deserves. It would be right, really.

Bucky’s hand comes up to wrap around Steve’s throat, his eyes wild and terrified. Steve reaches out to stroke a hand down Bucky’s haggard face, only to have it wrenched back painfully. He smiles, soft and rueful. “Remember when we first met?” he whispers, gasping against the inexorable pressure on his windpipe. “I was… I was getting the snot beat out of me by three boys. I don’t even remember their names anymore. And then there you were, suddenly, and I, I was thinking you looked liked some guardian angel before I remembered to be offended.” He chokes on a dry laugh. “If I’d only known then. God, you were beautiful.”

His vision is fading to grey at the edges, but he doesn’t try to thrash against Bucky. He’s too weak, hampered by exhaustion. The pressure against his throat isn’t enough to kill him on its own—he’s an angel, after all, and angels don’t need to breathe—but it distracts him from shielding himself against the Hellfire. The flames are inching closer and closer, wreathing the edges of his wings with pain. Steve can see stray flames brushing at Bucky’s wings, too, but they’re already charred and scarred from the Hellfire, and Bucky doesn’t seem to feel it. Steve’s eyes catch on the aura burning behind those mangled wings; Bucky seems to have forgotten to mask it, and it stands in stark glowing contrast against the fire around them. The silver is still pure and blinding and bright, but there are other colours, too, now. Spreading pools of black threaded through with red, speckled with blue-green flecks. It’s mottled and faded, but Steve can’t help but smile; his aura looks just the same, after all. Steve lets the mask fade away from his aura too, lets Bucky see the expanse of gold marred by identical patches of red and black and blue. Bucky probably doesn’t recognize the meaning of the gesture, not when he’s like this, but it settles something in Steve’s chest. This is how it should be.

There are HYDRA demons surrounding the two of them, now. Steve watches them pour in like the curtains of black creeping over his vision. There is a face he recognizes: Zola. A surge of hatred strong enough to surprise himself spikes within Steve, and he rears up with lips twisted in rage. Bucky presses harder against his throat, pushing him back down as he coughs.

“Take him down, Winter!” Zola commands, his dark eyes fixed on Steve. Bucky growls and shudders all over, but his hands tighten over Steve’s throat. “I said, take him down!”

Steve doesn’t bother looking at Zola. His vision is narrowing rapidly now, so that the only thing he can see are Bucky’s eyes. This, too, is how it should be. “I’m sorry, Buck,” he whispers. “I guess this is the end of the line, pal.” _I love you,_ he means to add, but he has neither the voice nor the energy.

The world erupts in pain, erupts in blinding white. Steve finally lets his eyes close.

_Goodbye, Bucky. I’m sorry._


	15. HELL: Chapter 15

The world is black and grey and red. He spends the vast majority of his time in missions all over Hell, the rest of it in training. He is often alone, but sometimes there is a team with him. It makes no difference to him; all he needs to know are his objectives. His wings twinge with pain, but ignoring it comes easier than breathing some days.

The world has not changed much for Bucky. And yet, everything has changed.

Steve is still in SHIELD’s version of intensive care, with a full team of healers working on him night and day. Bucky sees the bloodied and burned mess of his body every night in his dreams, hears Steve’s voice fade to silence as he looks at Bucky with those devastating, soft eyes. He remembers standing at SHIELD’s gates with Steve barely alive in his arms, swaying with exhaustion as his body struggled to recover from the effort it took to get them here. Bucky remembers knowing, in some vague distant way, that it was an outpouring of his Grace, and a lot of it. He remembers knowing in that same way, somewhere deep in his heart that no longer feels like a part of his own body, that Steve’s _astronomically idiotic_ heroics have strengthened them both. He remembers carefully avoiding thinking about what it meant for himself, only hoping that it was enough to keep Steve alive.

And Steve _is_ alive, if barely. Bucky would wish for more, but he knows it’s useless. The world is not so kind as to grant wishes, especially from someone so broken and scarred as him.

The Fury had approached him mere days later, and Bucky had not bothered pretending he hadn’t been sitting vigil over Steve’s still body. Nor had he bothered pretending to be surprised when the Fury offered to recruit him, just as the Fury did not pretend surprise when he accepted.

And so here he is, now, doing dirty work for SHIELD. The Avengers only join him when the mission is too large and too important to be entrusted to one ex-HYDRA killer. That’s fine with Bucky, really. The Avengers are Steve’s team, after all, and being among them only exacerbates the fluttering edges of the gaping hole in his chest. They regard him with wariness, and Bucky accepts that willingly as well. He is under no illusions about his place among them. They are not _his_ team, and they have no loyalty to him beyond residual loyalty stretching from their faith in Steve.

The missions are dangerous, perhaps more so than they should be, but Bucky is used to that. The missions are long and arduous and gruelling, but he is used to that also. The Fury likes to send him into the deepest, darkest corners of Hell, saying Bucky knows the inner twists and turns of Hell better than anyone else. Bucky considers telling the Fury that he needn’t bother with false justifications, that he’d do whatever he was told anyway, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort. It’s not like anything would change, anyway; better to let the Fury think he was exercising control over him than to break the illusion. And it is easy to follow orders, to keep fighting. It is easier that way, when he does not have to think too much.

There are some nights, some cold and silent and lonely nights, when Bucky can’t help but wonder how he ended up here. Why him, why like this? He stops asking, though, after a while. The universe offers him no answer or comfort, and the only solutions his mind can conjure up comes back to some darkness buried within him, some fatal flaw that marked him out to Fall long ago. He doesn’t know what it says about him that the answer doesn’t really surprise him. He’s always known Steve burned brighter than him, shined purer than him. This is where he was meant to end up, always.

So he doesn’t ask the Fury for time off, for easier missions, for less blood to fall on his hands. He doesn’t ask the world for kindness, for the nightmares to end, for the screams to stop echoing in his ears. This is only what he deserves, after all. How else can he make up for killing so many of his fellow angels, for causing their Falls?

Steve is still lying under a healer’s hands, and Bucky is still fighting. They are both barely holding on to fraying threads of life.

* * *

The world is white and soft and gentle. His limbs are sore in a way that Steve is deeply familiar with, the kind of dull ache that only comes after a long time lying in a hospital bed. He should—he should open his eyes. It takes him a few seconds to figure out how his muscles work, but then he blinks awake to an expanse of whiteness.

Thoughts are slow to rise to the surface of his mind, like swimming through the thick syrup he never got to taste as a child. He’s alive, which is a good start. He is… he is in a hospital bed. Not so good, but it could be worse. Alive in a hospital bed means he probably hasn’t been taken by hostiles, which is another good thing. His limbs are heavy, yes, but his fingertips and toes respond just fine when he tries to wiggle them, so no mobility issues. He has no idea how long he’s been out, though. That’s something he should fix.

Steve sits up, slowly, willing the world not to shake apart at the edges. A slow look around reveals a nondescript hospital room, all white sheets and white walls and white ceilings. He is wearing nondescript civilian clothes. There is a small design on his chest, maybe the size of his palm. It is… it is an eagle, Steve thinks, albeit stylized. The eagle means something important. The eagle means…

The eagle means SHIELD.

Reality comes rushing over Steve, shattering the glacier-still peace of his mind. SHIELD. The Avengers: the Falcon, the Widow—no, wait, Wilson and Romanova and all the rest. Missions, endless missions, bleeding together. Angels Falling, and a faceless attacker. Chasing shadows. The Winter. An explosion, maybe, something powerful, and then darkness. There was something else important, something he needed to find…

The door opens, and a pretty dark-haired healer enters the room. She’s doing an admirable job of playing the part, at least, and looking composed as if there’s nothing out of the ordinary. But Steve’s been in enough hospital rooms—both earthly and Heavenly—to recognize a nurse when he sees one. This angel, despite her white gown, is not a nurse. Given the undercurrent of coiled tension with which she carries herself, Steve guesses she’s an operative of some sort, and a capable one at that. At least a highly trained Archangel, more likely a Cherub. He probably could fight her off, if it came to it, but he doesn’t know what’s waiting behind that door; for all he knows, there’s an entire army of demons just waiting to claw his face right off. Better to play along, for now.

“Hello, Captain,” the not-healer says pleasantly. Steve nods but doesn’t say anything. A shadow of a frown flits across her face, but she moves on. “Are you feeling well? Any dizziness, sharp pains?”

“Where am I?” Steve asks in lieu of answering. “Where is this?”

“Why, Captain,” the woman says, and Steve might have been fooled by the surprise in her voice if he wasn’t already suspicious. “You’re at SHIELD, in one of our private rooms. Surely you recognize the insignia?”

“…Yes. Yes, ma’am, I do,” Steve says slowly, feigning slow comprehension when really he’s trying to figure out how likely it is that HYDRA could create a convincing fake SHIELD hospital room. He hesitates for a moment, and then decides he might as well take the plunge. Better to know what he’s dealing with sooner than later. “What… what happened to me? I don’t… I don’t remember anything.”

“That’s not entirely surprising,” the not-healer says immediately. Steve doesn’t miss the way her shoulders relax minutely. So she’d been hoping he wouldn’t remember, which means the next words out of her mouth are likely to be a lie. “You were on a mission, with the Avengers. The… The unknown force that’s been Falling SHIELD angels appeared and attacked the team you were tailing. It’s unclear exactly what happened, but your teammates reported that they engaged in battle with the hostile, and you were heavily injured during the course of the fight. Thankfully, your teammates successfully disabled the hostile, which turned out to be a new weapon developed by HYDRA, and then brought you back here. They’ve been waiting anxiously for you to recover.”

Steve isn’t sure whether to be pleased or not when he’s proven right. On the one hand, he knows for certain now that either an enemy force is going to great lengths to convince him all is right, or SHIELD is lying to him for some reason. On the bright side, at least his situational awareness and prediction are uncompromised. He has only a few seconds before he needs to spring to action; there’s only so long he can pretend to be processing what he’s been told, after all. But there’s something else, something important he was reaching for when she entered, interrupting his thoughts. There was something important about the Winter, something that came before the explosion. _Silver,_ Steve realizes with a sudden flash. There’d been silver, and streaks of black and red and blue. An aura.

 _Bucky’s_ aura.

Steve whirls suddenly, his body acting almost before his mind has reached a decision. He seizes the surprised woman by the shoulder, pinning her up against the wall. “Where’s Bucky?” he growls. “What have you done to him?”

“Captain—” she says, her hands scrabbling at his arms. “Captain, please, it’s no—”

“I won’t ask you again!” Steve says sharply. “Where is he?”

“I’m not allowed to sp…”

Steve growls impatiently and lets the woman crumple to the ground. She waves a trembling hand to do something, probably raise an alarm, so Steve spares a moment to bind her with a few quickly conjured ropes. It probably won’t hold her for long—she’s a powerful SHIELD operative, after all—but it should hopefully grant him a bit of a head start.

He bursts out the door into a vaguely familiar corridor; he might have walked through this part of SHIELD once. Well, at least he knows he’s with the real SHIELD, not HYDRA’s convincing facade. He’ll decide later if that makes the situation more or less terrifying. Steve chooses a direction at random and barrels down the halls, ignoring the other SHIELD agents that gape at him as he passes by. Some of them look alarmed, other scandalized, and still others simply annoyed. It doesn’t matter. All he needs to do is find Bucky—and to do that, he needs to go directly to the Seraph running the whole show.

After half a dozen blind corners, Steve finds himself in a section of SHIELD he actually recognizes. It’s easy, from then on, to make his way to the Fury’s office. Almost too easy, in fact. The fake-healer-that’s-actually-a-SHIELD-agent should be free by now, which means the Fury should know about his wild sprint through SHIELD. The Fury is no fool, so he’s surely figured out already that Steve’s headed straight for his office. Which leaves only one logical option: the Fury is _letting_ Steve reach him. The realization is enough to slow Steve’s footsteps as he approaches the door. He even considers knocking for a brief, surreal moment, before laughing at himself and simply walking in.

There are no surprises inside the door, but that only puts Steve even more on guard. The Fury is never without a secret trump card or two up his sleeve. The Seraph himself is there, sitting at his desk, as if an enraged Cherub hadn’t just attacked one of his agents and burst straight into his room.

“What are you doing with him?” Steve asks without bothering to beat about the bush.

“What he needs me to do,” the Fury responds, infuriatingly calm. At least he doesn’t feign ignorance. Steve still wants to punch the smug self-assuredness right off his face.

“And what’s that?” he forces himself to ask instead.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself? Since he’s right here.”

Steve jerks in surprise, casting his eyes about wildly. After a tense moment, Bucky steps out from the shadows in the far corner of the Fury’s office. He looks… well, he looks terrible, frankly, haggard and haunted and exhausted, but at least he’s alive. “Bucky?” he breathes, irrationally afraid he’s hallucinating. “Bucky, are you all right?”

Bucky nods once, fast and jerky, but doesn’t say anything. His eyes are fixed on the floor.

“Hey. Hey, Buck, can you look at me?”

Grey-blue eyes lift uncertainly from the ground, meeting Steve’s for just a brief second before disappearing to gaze at the same spot on the floor. Steve can see Bucky’s hands trembling where they’re clasped at his back.

“What have you done to him?” he demands without taking his eyes off Bucky. It’s wrong, it’s so _wrong_ for Bucky to look like that.

“Like I said, only what he needs, and nothing he did not agree to.”

“Why won’t he look at me, then?”

“Have you considered the possibility that he does not _want_ to?”

The question takes Steve aback for a moment. What if… what if Bucky really didn’t want to look at him? What if Bucky never wanted to see him, never wanted to say another word to him? Steve couldn’t blame him, not really; after all, it was because of Steve that Bucky ended up this way. If it hadn’t been for Steve, Bucky wouldn’t have had to sacrifice himself to get him out of Hell, and he wouldn’t have…

No. No, Steve knows what he saw in Bucky’s eyes, and it wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even hatred. It was a painful mixture of fear and guilt and shame. Steve doesn’t know _why_ Bucky’s feeling that way, or why he isn’t glaring balefully at Steve, but he is certain of what he saw. The Fury is trying to play him, trying to distract him from the main issue. Which means that there _is_ a main issue, and one he doesn’t want Steve to find out. Something that has Bucky still looking like a half-dead ghost, that has Bucky staring at the ground and refusing to say a word.

“You’re using him,” Steve says, and he knows he’s right as he says it. The way the Fury stiffens only confirms it. “You’re sending him on missions, aren’t you? _God,_ what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“He needed directives, orders,” the Fury says, but Steve can sense the wariness in his words. “A way to make himself useful and find meaning in his life, and keep him from driving himself insane at your bedside. I gave him an option, and he took it.”

“And I suppose you also gave him the option to be free?” Steve shoots back. He won’t let the Fury pretend he’s done Bucky some great favour, not when he’s just been hurting Bucky further. “To walk away from all this and recover, before you use him as your little toy soldier?”

“He agreed to every mission I gave him.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Steve exclaims, sarcasm clawing up his throat. His voice is rising with his anger, but he can’t quite stop himself. “The guy that’s been trained as an obedient soldier for centuries, the one you took in as an indentured soldier when he had nowhere else to turn, the guy you sent on a million deadly missions by holding someone else’s retribution over his head, said yes to your proposition! The guy that’s been _brainwashed_ and _forced_ to kill his fellow angels said yes! Well, that fixes everything, doesn’t it? There’s no way you’ve done _anything wrong_ in this whole mess, oh no. You were just magnanimous enough to give him an option. How very generous of you. Clearly, you’ve saved him fro—”

“Steve, stop. Please.”

The voice is quiet, barely audible enough over Steve’s tirade, but Steve has dreamed this voice, has had nightmares about nothing but this voice, for too many weeks now; there’s no way he could miss it. Immediately, the Fury fades completely to insignificance. Only Bucky matters, now.

“Bucky. Hey, Bucky. I’m sorry, pal, I didn’t mean to speak for you,” he says gently. His lips curve in an approximation of a smile, but his heart is aching at Bucky’s uncertain and subservient posture, and Steve’s pretty sure it looks more like a grimace.

“He’s… he’s not lying,” Bucky says determinedly, as if it’s crucial that Steve understands this. “I agreed to it. I agreed to all of it. He didn’t _make_ me do anything.”

“No, I’m sure he didn’t,” Steve says, and he can’t help the venom that seeps into his voice. “But that doesn’t mean he gave you a choice.”

“But…” Bucky says, brows furrowed in confusion. “But I said yes.”

“He never asked you the important question,” Steve replies. He doesn’t need to ask the Fury to know this. “He never gave you a different option.”

“I could have said no, Stevie,” Bucky reasons. “I just didn’t.”

“Bucky, listen to me,” Steve says urgently. His feet carry him forward without conscious thought, and suddenly he’s standing right in front of Bucky. Steve uses their proximity to try and soothe Bucky, to coax him into lifting his eyes. It’s paramount that he gets an honest answer to this next question; otherwise, his entire argument against the Fury falls apart at the root. “Just one question, Buck, that’s all. Do you want to fight?”

“I… I should,” Bucky says after a long moment of hesitation. “That’s what I’m trained to do, right?”

“That’s not what I asked you, Bucky. Do you _want_ to keep fighting?”

Bucky looks at Steve with eyes full of uncertainty and confusion. Steve aches for him, but this is one question he can’t answer for Bucky. It has to be Bucky’s choice. Slowly, ever so slowly, Bucky shakes his head just once. He immediately buries his head in Steve’s chest afterwards, and Steve’s pretty sure he hears Bucky murmuring _I’m sorry_ into the fabric of the plain SHIELD-crested shirt.

“You have your answer,” Steve tells the Fury without looking up. “He’s done, and so am I. We’re leaving.”

“I saved your lives. I was the only thing standing between you and an infinity spent in Purgatory, or worse. You owe me—”

“ _God_ , Fury,” Steve interrupts. It’s unwise, he knows, but he can’t keep listening to this _bullshit._ “I know you’re a fucking piece of work. I’ve known since the first damn day I met you. At least have the decency to stop pretending generosity.

"You didn’t help us because you felt bad for us. You saved us because you saw an opportunity to forge two soldiers who would have no choice but to obey your every order. You didn’t offer Bucky a place as a SHIELD agent because you thought he needed the order, because somewhere in the depths of your heart you found kindness for a hurt man. You gave him missions because you knew he wouldn’t refuse, and you liked the chance to use an extraordinarily skilled agent as your personal attack dog.”

“I can still send the Council after you. Once you leave that door, I won’t protect you any more.”

“I don’t think we’ll need you to. See, there’s nothing stopping you from forcing us into obedience, right here and now. Or at least, there shouldn’t be. But here you are, resorting to desperate threats. I figure we’re holding some ace card that I don’t know about yet, but you bet I’m gonna find out what. And whatever it is, if it’s enough to keep the director of SHIELD from making us do his bidding, I’m willing to bet it’s also enough to keep the Council from forcing us into punishment or obedience.

“Come on, Bucky. Let’s go.” Steve holds Bucky close and lets him hide in his chest as they walk out. He pauses at the door for a moment to consider the Fury, who’s standing there like a man who’s seen a ghost.

“Listen, Fury,” Steve says, more gently than he has this whole confrontation. “I don’t think you’re evil, and I’m willing to grant that you probably think you’re doing what’s best for Heaven. But try to see your agents as angels, as creatures with their own lives and sorrows and joys, instead of just assets to take advantage of. You might be surprised where that gets you.”

And with that, he walks away without a backward glance. No one tries to stop them.


	16. HELL: Chapter 16

Freedom suits Bucky ill, even worse than Steve expected. Admittedly, Steve isn’t adjusting too well either, spending hours of his newfound “free time” blankly wondering what to do with himself, or driving himself crazy with the same handful of thoughts whirling around his mind like a manic merry-go-round. Still, if he’s coping badly, then Bucky… Bucky really isn’t coping at all.

Steve hasn’t heard Bucky speak a single word since they walked out on SHIELD. He might’ve feared the Fury had done some unspeakable thing to render Bucky voiceless as they left, if it wasn’t for the nightly screaming. He hasn’t been able to touch Bucky, either, hasn’t been able to reassure himself with a firm hug or soothe him after nightmares. Bucky shies away from touch at best, and flinches violently at worst. Hell, Steve can count on one hand the number of times he’s been able to meet Bucky’s eyes, and none of them have lasted more than a second. Mostly, Bucky follows Steve around like a shadow and stands in a corner of whatever room Steve’s in. It breaks Steve’s heart to see the lost look in Bucky’s eyes, and he’s spent more hours than he cares to count pounding out his rage on a punching bag.

The thing is, Steve _should_ know how to help Bucky. He’s Bucky’s best friend, for God’s sake, maybe even more. Despite everything Bucky’s done for Steve, all the sacrifices made and all the time shared, Steve can’t figure out the first step to helping Bucky when he needs Steve to return the favour. He could scream at his own uselessness.

It’s possible Steve had been expecting too much. That sounds like something Bucky would tell him. Or rather, it sounds like something the old Bucky would have told him. But even then, Steve feels like they should have made _some_ progress after two weeks. He doesn’t even know what the nightmares that haunt Bucky are about. Maybe, maybe if he knew that, he’d know how to help Bucky.

Of course, the universe grants Steve his wish in the worst possible way, because the universe has a cruel sense of humour like that. He wakes to the sound of Bucky’s nightmares, which is far from unusual. What _is_ unusual, however, is the sound itself. It’s not screaming that woke him; it’s sobbing. Once Steve realizes this, there is nothing that could keep him from rushing to Bucky’s side, not even the agonizing distance Bucky’s put between them. Only his fear of terrifying Bucky further keeps him rooted a few steps away from Bucky, instead of wrapped tight around him like he could chase away the horror that haunts Bucky with the flimsy shield of his own body.

“Bucky?” Steve calls as gently as he can. “Bucky, hey, Bucky, it’s me. It’s Steve. Can you hear me?”

Bucky looks up, which would overjoy him if the eyes that met his weren’t red-rimmed and full of despair. “I… I hurt them,” Bucky gasps out. “I _killed_ them. So many angels, God, I killed all of them.”

“Shhhhhhh, Buck,” Steve tries to soothe. “It’s not your fault. It wasn’t your choice, Bucky. It wasn’t your choice.”

“I almost killed you!” Bucky wails, scrambling away from Steve. “I… I had my hands on your _throat!_ I was burning you!”

“Not your fault, Bucky,” Steve repeats. “Not your fault. None of that’s your fault.”

“Why didn’t you fight back?” Bucky says. “Why didn’t you fight me, you fucking idiot? Why’d you let me kill you?”

Steve doesn’t know how to answer that except with painful honesty. “You were hurting enough already. I wasn’t going to add to that. I couldn’t. Besides, I was… I _am_ the reason you ended up there.”

“ _Not_ your fault,” Bucky growls with sudden heat. “I won’t let you blame yourself for that.”

“But you’re allowed to blame yourself, huh?” Steve shoots back, sardonic. “I’m telling you, it wasn’t your fault. You’re innocent, Bucky.”

“Steve, you can’t say that,” Bucky whispers. “You _can’t_ , not when you don’t know half of what I’ve done. I’m… I’m _bad_ , Steve, I’m bad and I’m just going to drag you down.”

“Don’t you dare say that,” Steve grinds out. “Don’t you _dare._ That’s my best friend you’re talking about, and I’ll have to shut you up if you keep besmirching his good name. Besides, it’s my damn choice whether I go with you or not.”

“I _was_ your best friend,” Bucky corrects dejectedly. “I’m… I’m not sure what I am anymore, but I’m sure as hell not the person you knew. I mean, _look at me!_ ” A full-body shudder wracks Bucky, and then he lets the mask fall from his aura. The air behind him lights up in bright silver, dappled with broad strokes of black and red and blue. “Look at what’s happened to my aura. This is who I am, now. This is _what_ I am. I’m not good for you, Steve, I mean it.”

“What, you think that’s gonna push me away?” Steve says. “You think it matters? Bucky, I saw that way back when I went down to Hell the second time to find you. I don’t _care_ , Buck! Hell, you’re not the only one who’s been changed by what happened.” It’s easy as breathing to let the mask drop from his own aura, displaying it to Bucky’s shocked eyes. Steve can picture all too well what Bucky’s seeing: the brilliant glowing gold, dampened and dulled by swirling patches of red and blue and black. His aura looks like some of his worst bruises as a scrappy kid in Brooklyn, and he’d be a little ashamed of it if he wasn’t so busy being outraged. “Look, Bucky! I’m not that different from you. If you’re bad, then so am I. You’re not dragging me down anywhere that I haven’t already gone myself.”

Bucky reaches out a hand towards Steve’s aura as if mesmerized before he shrinks back. Steve meets his uncertain eyes, and gives a nod of agreement. The hand sneaks forward again, ever so slowly, and for one frozen moment before the fingertips meet his aura, Steve thinks this might be it. This will be what saves them or breaks them. Bucky’s fingers slide right through a golden streak winding between a cloud of black. The gold wavers a bit, and then shines silver for a split second before fading back to its original shade and dancing around the hand obstructing it. Steve thinks Bucky gasps, or maybe it’s himself, or maybe it’s both of them. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the two of them, and this moment, here and now. An infinity stretches behind them, all the moments since the beginning of time that have brought them here. An infinity stretches ahead of them, all the possibilities and futures waiting for their decision.

“What… what happened to you?” Bucky whispers, after a stretch of time that might have been seconds or years. “Why’s it…?”

“I didn’t do too well after you… after I lost you. I hit a rough patch for a while. I wasn’t thinking clearly or caring much about anything. Fighting and almost dying was the only time I felt alive, so… so I just kept fighting. And then this happened.” Steve tries to shrug, tries to feign nonchalance, but he’s not particularly successful. He was never good at lying to Bucky.

“You’re not bad,” Bucky breathes quietly. Steve isn’t quite sure if it’s meant for him, or for Bucky himself. “You could never be bad, not you. So, so I…”

“So you’re not bad, either, Bucky,” Steve finishes. “You’ve been hurt, and you’ve suffered, and you’ve endured. You’ve been through _so much_ , so much more than anyone should ever have to. But you’re here. And so am I. That’s what matters, isn’t it?”

Bucky looks at him, awed. Steve looks right back, meets Bucky’s eyes and holds it. There’s something fragile in this connection, something fledgling and delicate and hopeful, and he refuses to be the one to break it.

Between one eyeblink and the next, Bucky surges forward. Steve doesn’t have time for even an instinctive flinch before a pair of lips is pressing desperately against his. The breath rushes out of him in a gasp and he wraps his arms securely around Bucky. Bucky doesn’t flinch away this time, just crowds closer and kisses Steve harder. Steve has no intentions of resisting.

When they finally break apart, Bucky laughs, bright and breathy and incredulous. Steve just watches him, the hint of joy spreading across weary features, and he laughs, too. It’s quiet, at first, soft and subdued, but it grows and spreads like wildfire and soon they’re laughing like children again, loud guffaws that leave them breathless.

“This is real, right?” Bucky gasps. “This is real. You, me, us. Freedom.”

“Yes, you jerk,” Steve confirms. “It’s all real, Bucky. We’re free. Which, actually, do you know how that happened? I figured the Fury was afraid of something, I’m just not sure _what_.”

“Oh, that! Uh, did I ever tell you that sacrifice is supposed to strengthen Grace?”

“The Fury told me, actually, after… after. Is that…?”

“You’re a self-sacrificing idiot that almost died trying to save me. So yes, that’s what happened. And the Fury wasn’t too keen on pissing off two Seraphim, I figure.”

“Probably not, yeah. Especially given our track record. You _did_ make me an angel against all orders, even the Council. And you were only a Cherub then.”

Bucky laughs again, carefree and happy. Steve decides that’s a sound he wants to hear for the rest of his life, however long it is.  


	17. EPILOGUE

The sky is clear and soft, pre-dawn light trickling down like a sheen of gold. The land under the sky is wide and broad and open, uninterrupted by a single tree or rock or river. It lies unformed, like the Earth before the start of Time, awaiting the touch of creation.

Two figures hover on the edge of this vast shifting nebula: one blond, one brunet. Neither casts a shadow. They stand straight-backed, the way retired soldiers in ceremonial uniform do. Their shoulders stiffen and uncurl like Atlas at last shrugging off the weight of the world.

One shakes his wings gently, and a smattering of ash flutters to the ground. The feathers of the wings are charred and burnt, the flesh scarred; but a layer of soft down and pink flesh peeks out below, promising rebirth. The other leans heavily on his companion, unsteady on his feet in the manner of someone too soon out of a hospital bed. He does not falter, however, as they stand together, looking over the unshaped land.

“So,” Bucky says. “Where do we go now?”

“The future,” Steve replies immediately, a smirk playing on the edges of his lips.

“The future,” Bucky echoes, mirroring the smirk. “And where exactly is that, oh Captain?”

“Wherever we want it to be,” Steve says, his expression turning fond. His fingertips glow the tell-tale blue of Grace, and then the world ahead explodes into bright glittering silver.

Bucky’s smile turns sardonic as he throws dark splotches of black and red and blue across the silver. He raises an eyebrow in challenge; behind him, a silver aura springs into visibility, swimming with the same colours.

With a laugh, Steve throws his hands up and begins to move as if to paint across a wide canvas. Ahead, a shimmering landscape takes form: a red sunrise across the sky, black forest in the distance, a blue river cutting across the land. Bucky stares, mesmerized, as an entire new world comes to life in front of his eyes.

“Wherever we want it to be, huh,” he says. His eyes glitter a little, perhaps a hint of tears or perhaps a trick of the light. He swipes his hand across the sky, once, and the red of the dawn sky fades into soft gold as it reaches the crest of the sky.

Steve smiles, wide and fond and overwhelmed. His aura, too, bursts into view, a halo of gold streaked with the same red-black-blue. They look at each other for a lingering moment. When they come together, lips pressing and arms wrapping, it is less of a gesture of romance and more a pure meeting of souls.

Behind them, their auras merge, gold bleeding into silver and silver spreading into gold. The splashes of colour fade a little, perhaps, for both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's done!!! Thank you so much for everyone who's stuck with me throughout the process.  
> My betas & artists definitely need to get another mention:  
> 
> 
>   * dangerouslychaoticnacho, who saw me through every chapter
>   * artgroves, who willingly jumped in at the last minute and helped me raise this fic to much higher quality than it ever was
>   * milollita, who made wonderful paper art of Steve & Bucky's wings (see them in Chapter 7, Chapter 14, and on [tumblr](http://milollita.tumblr.com/post/149414008086/if-heaven-and-hell-decide-by-capgal-steve-grins))
>   * maichan808, who drew incredible art of Bucky raising Steve as an angel (see it in Chapter 6, and on [tumblr](http://maichan808.tumblr.com/post/149368246517/here-is-the-first-of-my-stucky-big-bang-pieces-i))
> 

> 
> This has been a wild adventure, by _far_ the longest fic I've ever written. Thank you for all the love you've shown it so far! I'm dying to hear all your comments and thoughts, now that it's finally done. (There's also [a tumblr post](http://capgal.tumblr.com/post/149510741763/if-heaven-and-hell-decide-by-capgal-a) for this fic, if you're willing to share it with your followers.)  
>  Last but not least, thank you to the Big Bang organizers for making this happen. I can't believe it's finally done!


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